Asia at the Crossroads: Japan, Korea, China, Philippine Islands

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I

I Dr. Frederick T. Wrlghtl

TTh^lh

>Tgg

1

V

i

at SaUunui Mill Uke place tl

I .OF ■

ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

JAPAN : KOREA : CHINA :
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

y by

E^ALBXANDEE POWELL

ACTHoa or "nil LA*r rtomrai," "tiobtiwo in rumCM,"

"WBIU TMB sriAMOI IBAIU 00 OOWB," CTC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

THE CENTURY CO.

1922

Copyright, 1922, by
The Century Co.

Printed in U. S.

To

HoXORABLE

WARREN G. HARDING
President of the United States
who, by his vision and statesmanship
in calling the Washington Conference,
has done more than any man of our time
to preserve the peace of the Pacific
and to further the friendship and
mutual understanding of the peo-
ples dwelling upon its shores

FOREWORD

Most writers on E»r Eastern politics make the mis-
take of crediting their readers with a profounder
knowledge of the subject than they in fact possess.
They take too much for granted. They talk in terms
of algebra instead of arithmetic. On the assumption
that those who read their books already understand
the meaning of such phrases as "spheres of influence/'
"extratemtoriality," the Shogunate, the Genro, the
tuchwns, the Anf u Club, the Consortium, the Gentle-
men's Agreement, the Twenty-one Demands, they
make repeated use of them without pausing long
enough to explain precisely what they mean. As a
result, the casual reader, who usually has only a
vague idea of the subject to start with, either becomes
bewildered and gives up in despair, frankly admitting
that he does not understand what it is all about, or
he forms conclusions which, being based on miscon-
ceptions, do not agree with the facts.

So, though the shelves of the public libraries sag
beneath the volumes that have been written on various
phases of Oriental politics, it seems to me that there is
still a place for a clear, concise, simply written, un-
prejudiced explanation of the various problems, po-
litical, economic, and financial, which, taken together,

vu

viii FOREWORD

form what is commonly referred to as the Far Eastern
Question. Therefore, even at the risk of covering
ground with which some of my readers are doubtless
already familiar, I have endeavored to sketch in
outline, using simple, every-day language, the condi-
tions and events which have combined to produce
the present complex situation. Those who have the
patience to follow me to the end will have gained, I
hope, a sound, if rudimentary, understanding of one
of the most perplexing subjects in the whole field of
international politics.

I am perfectly aware that, so far as the chapters
dealing with Japan and China are concerned, this
book does not cover much new ground historically,
nor is it marked by any special originality of presen-
tation. I am also aware that much of the material
has been used repeatedly in recent years by other
writers on Japanese and Chinese questions. But,
in spite of this, the book has, I believe, the merits of
being clear, comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-the-
minute. It was written, in the main, while the Wash-
ington Conference was still in session — an advantage
in that it enabled me to discuss the mooted questions
with the very men best qualified to discuss them; a
disadvantage, perhaps, in that certain of the condi-
tions which I have described, particularly in China,
will necessarily be modified by the conferees' deci-
sions.

FOREWORD ix

A certain number of errors inevitably creep into the
pages of any book of this nature, no matter how
carefully it may be written and edited, but, in order
to keep the errors to a minimum, the proof-sheets of
the various chapters were submitted for correction
to gentlemen who are universally recognized as among
the highest authorities on the subjects treated in them.
The proofs of the chapters on Japan and Korea were
read and corrected by His Highness Prince Toku-
gawa, President of the Japanese House of Peers, and
by His Excellency Baron Shidehara, Japanese Am-
bassador to the United States, both members of the
Japanese Delegation to the Washington Conference,
and by the Honorable Roland S. Morris, formerly
American Ambassador to Japan. The chapters on
China were revised by Dr. J. C. Ferguson, Adviser
to the President of the Chinese Republic, a distin-
guished educator and probably the leading foreign
authority on Chinese affairs. The chapters on the
Philippines were corrected by the Honorable Wil-
liam H. Taft, Chief Justice of the United States and
formerly Governor-General of the Philippine Islands ;
by the Honorable Cameron Forbes, also a former
governor-general and a member of the Wood-Forbes
Mission, and by Major-General Frank Mclntyre,
Chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs. It should
be clearly understood, however, that the opinions ex-
pressed in the following pages do not necessarily

x FOREWORD

reflect the views, nor in all cases meet with the ap-
proval, of the gentlemen in question. The opinions
expressed in this book are my own.

Some of the things which I have written will prob-
ably give offense to those governments and individuals
from whom I received many courtesies. Those who
are privileged to speak for governments are fond
of asserting that their governments have nothing to
conceal and that they welcome honest criticism, but
long experience has taught me that when they are
told unpalatable truths governments are usually as
sensitive and resentful as friends. Yet, were I to
attempt to retain the good-will of the governments
and officials of the countries under discussion by re-
fraining from unfavorable comment, this book would
be little more than propaganda. Perhaps it is
too much to expect, but I would like those who showed
me so many kindnesses in Japan, China, Korea, and
the Philippines to believe that I have leaned back-
ward in an effort to keep these pages free from bias
and injustice, that I have tried to tell the truth as I
understand it and because I believe that it is to the
best interests of all the peoples concerned that the
unvarnished truth should be told. If those of my
country people who honor me by reading this book
obtain from it a clearer understanding of the problems
and perplexities which confront our trans-Pacific
neighbors, if it teaches them to regard the short-

FOREWORD xi

comings of the peoples of Eastern Asia a little more
leniently and their national aspirations a little more
sympathetically, then I shall feel that my purpose in
writing it has been accomplished.

E. Alexander Powell.
Washington, January, 1922.

AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I welcome this opportunity of expressing my ap-
preciation of the innumerable courtesies extended to
me by the governments of Japan, Korea, China, and
the Philippine Islands, and of the many personal
kindnesses shown me by individuals in those countries.

My studies in the Japanese Empire were greatly
facilitated by the hearty cooperation of the late
Premier Hara, whose tragic death at the hands of an
assassin in November, 1921, was a profound shock to
all who knew him. For the assistance and hospitality
which I received everywhere in Japan and Korea I
am also grateful to His Excellency Baron Shidehara,
Japanese Ambassador to the United States; to His
Highness Prince Tokugawa, President of the House
of Peers; to His Excellency Masanao Hanihara,
Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs; to Major-General
6. Tanaka, formerly Minister of War ; to His Excel-
lency Admiral Baron Saito, Governor-General of
Korea, and to Dr. Kentaro Midzuno, the Vice-Gov-
ernor-General; to Viscount Kaneko; to Dallas
McGrew, Esq., and Frederick Moore, Esq., of the
Japanese Foreign Office ; to Dr. T. Iyenaga, of New
York City; to the Hon. Hansford Miller, American
Consul-General at Seoul; and in particular to the

xni

xiv AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Hon. Roland S. Moms, formerly American Ambas-
sador to Japan.

Of the many persons who assisted me in China my
thanks are due to Dr. J. C. Ferguson, Adviser to the
President of the Chinese Republic ; to the Hon. Paul
R. Reinsch, formerly American Minister to China;
to Ray Atherton, Esq., Secretary of the American
Legation at Peking; to I. Tokugawa, Esq., Secretary
of the Japanese Legation at Peking; to P. Loureiro,
Esq., Assistant Financial Secretary of the Salt Rev-
enue Administration ; and to Bertram Lennox-Simp-
son, Esq. ("Putnam Weale").

For the great trouble to which they put themselves
in rendering my visit to the Philippines instructive
and enjoyable I am very grateful to the Hon. Francis
Burton Harrison, formerly Governor-General of the
Philippine Islands; to the Hon. Manuel Quezon,
President of the Philippine Senate; to the Hon.
Sergio Osmena, Speaker of the House ; to the Hon.
Frank C. Carpenter, Governor of the Department
of Mindanao and Sulu; to the Hon. P. W. Rogers,
formerly Governor of Jolo; to Colonel Ralph W.
Jones of the Philippine Constabulary; to Major Ed-
win C. Bopp, Chief of Police of Manila, and to army,
scout, and constabulary officers all the way from
northern Luzon to Zamboanga.

This also affords me an opportunity to acknowl-
edge my indebtedness for many suggestions and much

AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT xv

valuable material which I have derived from the fol-
lowing sources : "Modern Japan," by A. S. Hershey ;
"What Shall I Think of Japan?" by George Gleason;
"The Japanese Empire," by Philip Terry; "The Far
East Unveiled," by Frederick Coleman; "The New
Far East," by T. J. Millard; "The Mastery of the
Far East," by Arthur Judson Brown; "China, Japan
and Korea," by J. O. P. Bland; "These from the
Land of Sinim," by Sir Robert Hart; "China in
Transformation," by A. B. Colquhoun; "Peking
Dust," by Ellen La Motte; "Modern China," by S.
G. Cheng; "Korea," by Angus Hamilton; "In Korea
with the Marquis Ito," by George T. Ladd; "Korea's
Fight for Freedom," by F. A. McKenzie; "The Pass-
ing of Korea," by H. B. Hurlbert ; "The Truth About
Korea," by C. W. Kendall; "The Rebirth of Korea,"
by Hugh H. Cynn; "The Case for the Filipinos,"
by Maximo M. Kalaw; "The Philippine Islands and
Their People" and "The Philippines, Past and Pres-
ent," by Dean C. Worcester, and particularly the
extremely able despatches of the New York Tribune's
Far Eastern correspondent, Mr. Nathaniel Peffer.

E. Alexander Powell.

CONTENTS

PAST via

I Japan • . • . $

II Korea 101

1. The Peninsula and Its People 101

2. The Japanese in Korea 127

III China 181

IV The Philippine Islands 273

Appendix A 845

Appendix B 848

ILLUSTRATIONS

Crown Prince Hirohito Frontispiece

FAGOra PAOE

Map of the Japanese Empire 82

Fujiyama, the Sacred Mountain, and Fuji River ... 48

Sunset in Shiba Park, Tokyo • 48

A Religious Procession in Kioto 40

Map of Chosen (Korea) 112

Korean Peasant Taking Farm-Products to Market . 128

Korean Peasant Woman and Child 128

Funeral of the Ex-Emperor of Korea 129

Devil-Posts Outside Korean Village to Keep Away Evil

Spirits 160

Transporting Fodder on the Backs of Bulls in Korea . . 160

Ancient Korean Temple in Seoul 161

Palanquin of Prince Li 161

Map of China 181

The Great Wall of China 188

Another View of the Great Wall 188

Camels under the Walls of Peking 189

The Tartar Wall and a Portion of the Tartar City in

Peking 189

The Jade Pagoda near Peking 196

A Pagoda of the Summer Palace 197

xix

xx ILLUSTRATIONS

FACnra PAOl

The Temple of Heaven, Peking 197

Hsu Shin-Chang 204

Dr. Son Yat-Sen 204

In the Forbidden City 205

Canal Scene in Canton 228

The Pawnshops of Canton 228

View from the Terrace of the Summer Palace .... 229

Bridge in the Gardens of the Summer Palace, Peking . . 229

A Funeral Procession in Peking 240

Funeral Procession of a High Official 240

An Itinerant Mendicant of the Northern Hill . . .241

Tibetan Priests at the Entrance to the Lama Temple,

Peking 241

Chinese Railway Guards 272

Japanese Railway Guard 272

A Feast Given by a Boy of 18 Years and His 12- Year-Old

Wife on the Anniversary of the Death of Their Son 278

The 1911 Eruption of Taal Volcano 276

The Little River that Flows Through the Town ... 277

A Bit of Zamboanga 277

A Kalinga Man and Woman 284

A Kalinga Dancing-Girl 285

A Kalinga Family 285

Map of the Philippine Islands 288

Rice Terraces Built by the Ifugaoes in the Mountain Prov-
ince, Luzon 292

Filipinos Threshing Rice with Their Feet 298

ILLUSTRATIONS xxi

PACIHO FAOI

Plowing and Harrowing the Zacate Fields 203

Roasting a Dog at an Igorot Caniau in the Mountains of

Luzon 300

An Igorot Burial Cave 300

Fruit-Bats in Flight, Lagangilang 301

Boobies on Tubbataja Reef 301

Moros of Zamboanga 304

A Negrito 304

A Monobo-Manguangan from the Upper Agusan, Mindanao 305

A Bagobo Youth 305

A Moro Enlisted Man 320

A Moro Dato 320

An Ifugao Soldier 320

The Famous "Zigzag" on the Benguet Road . .321

The Pasig River, Manila 321

ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

PART I

JAPAN

IT is too early by many years to assess at their
true value the achievements and failures of the
Washington Conference for the Limitation of Arma-
ments. We are standing too near the picture to esti-
mate with accuracy its merits and its faults. But,
when history has lent it the justice of perspective,
the assembly of nations which convened on the banks
of the Potomac in November, 1921, will assuredly
be recognized as one of the most remarkable episodes
of our time. No taatter what else it accomplished, or
failed to accomplish, it provided the world with a
striking object-lesson in the efficacy, as applied to
international relations, of the policy of let's-sit-down-
and-talk-it-over.

It would be idle to deny that, when the Confer-
ence was called by President Harding, Japan was
regarded as a potential enemy by a majority of

Americans. I, for one, am convinced that, had the

3

4 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

mutual suspicions and misunderstandings of the two
peoples been permitted to continue, had their respec-
tive governments clung to the policies which they
were then pursuing, the situation would have ended
in war. Yet their mutual suspicions were so largely
allayed, their misunderstandings so successfully com-
posed by the frank discussions which characterized the
Conference, that, when it ended, the sentiment of
most thoughtful persons, Americans and Japanese,
was expressed by Prince Tokugawa, President of the
House of Peers, when he said upon his departure
from our shores: "The United States has learned
that Japan entertains no aggressive designs in the
Pacific and Japan has learned that she has nothing
to expect from this side of the Pacific except friendly
cooperation."

The near-hostility which until recently embittered
the relations of the United States and Japan, and
which threatened at one time to break into an open
sore, was due, I am convinced, not to any inherent
ill-will on the part of either people for the other, but
to a mutual lack of knowledge and sympathetic un-
derstanding. In other words, both Americans and
Japanese had shown themselves unable, or unwilling,
to think the other's mind. It was not enough for
groups of more or less representative Americans and
Japanese to gather about banquet tables and indulge
in sonorous protestations of mutual friendship and in-
ternational good-will, or to cable each other hands-

JAPAN *

across-the-sea greetings couched in terms of fulsome
praise. The possibilities of a cordial relationship and
a harmonious cooperation between the two nations
are so tremendous, the interests at stake are so vast
and far-reaching, the consequences of an armed con-
flict would be so catastrophic and overwhelming, that
it is unthinkable that the two peoples should ever
again permit themselves to drift into the frame of
mind which existed in both countries prior to the Con-
ference at Washington.

Yet, if such a perilous situation is not again to
arise, each people must make an earnest endeavor to
gain a better understanding of the temperament, tra-
ditions, ambitions, limitations, and problems of the
other, and to make corresponding allowances for
them — in short, to cultivate a more tolerant and sym-
pathetic state of mind. Japan is, and probably al-
ways will be, one of the most important countries, if
not the most important, on our political horizon.
Summoned from obscurity by an American commo-
dor.. «d,„t,„g w,th .v,d' «y L devices of Western

civilization, advancing as in seven-league boots to
her present position as one of the five greatest mili-
tary and naval powers in the world, our closest com-
petitor in the race for the trade of Eastern Asia, one
of our most profitable customers, the key that can
lock the Open Door — it is imperative for every Amer-
ican to learn more about this great Ocean Empire on
the other side of the Pacific and to obtain a clearer

6 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

understanding of what has taken place in those nine-
and-sixty amazing years — less than the span of life
which the Scriptures allot to man — since the anchors
of Perry's frigates rumbled down in the Bay of Yedo.

The Japanese Question is an extremely compli-
cated one. Its ramifications extend into the realms
of politics, industry, commerce, and finance. It
stretches across one hundred and fifty degrees of
longitude. It affects the lives and destinies of six
hundred millions of people. Its roots are to be found
as far apart as a Japanese military outpost in Siberia
and the headquarters of a labor union in Sacramento,
as a Korean village and a Californian farm, as an
obscure harbor on the coast of Mexico and a cable-
station on a lonely rock in the Pacific, as the offices
of a firm of international bankers in Wall Street and
the palace of the President of China in the Forbidden
City.

To understand algebra, you must have a knowl-
edge of arithmetic. To understand the Japanese
Question, you must have at least a rudimentary
knowledge of the various factors which have combined
to produce it. It grew to its present dimensions so
silently, so stealthily, that the average well-informed
American has only a vague and frequently erroneous
idea of what it vis all about. He has read in the
newspapers of the anti-Japanese agitation in Califor-
nia, of the Gentlemen's Agreement, of picture-brides,

JAPAN 7

of mysterious Japanese troop-movements in Siberia,
of Japan's "special interests" in Manchuria, of Japa-
nese oppression in Korea, of the Shantung contro-
versy, of the dispute over Yap ; but to him these iso-
lated episodes usually had about as much significance
as so many fragments of a complicated jig-saw puz-
zle. Moreover, the avalanche of information, near-
information, and misinformation about Japan which
filled the columns of the daily papers prior to and
during the Washington Conference bewildered rather
than enlightened him. Therefore, even at the risk of
repeating some facts with which you are doubtless
already familiar, I will endeavor to piece the puzzle
together, so that you may view the picture in its
entirety and in the light of the Conference's decisions.
But, before I proceed, let me make it amply clear
that I hold no brief for Japan. I am an American
and, because I wish to see my country morally in the
right, I deplore the unjust, intolerant, and provoca-
tive attitude toward the Japanese adopted by certain
elements of our population. I believe that the poli-
tician or publicist who deliberately inflames public
opinion against a nation with which we are at peace,
and with which we wish to remain at peace, is an
enemy to the best interests of his country and should
be treated as such by all decent citizens. It is to the
great mass of reasoning and fair-minded people in
both countries, who, I am convinced, wish to learn
the unvarnished truth, no matter how unflattering

8 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

it may be to their national pride, how disillusionizing,
that I address myself. In order that they may have
the clearest possible understanding of a situation
which vitally concerns the future well-being of both
the United States and Japan, I propose, in the fol-
lowing pages, to discard all euphemism and diplo-
matic subterfuge and to tell as much as possible of
"nothing but the truth."

n

Some truths, more half-truths, many untruths have
been said and written in each country about the other.
The clear waters of our old-time friendship have been
roiled by prejudice and propaganda. Much of our
appalling ignorance of Japanese character, aims,
and ideals is traceable to our national propensity for
generalization — always an inexact and dangerous
method of estimating another people, and doubly
dangerous in the case of a people as complex as the
Japanese. Let us not forget that we were accus-
tomed to think of the French as a volatile, excitable,
easy-going, pleasure-obsessed, decadent people until
the Marne and Verdun taught us the truth. Such a
misconception was deplorable in the case of a people
from whom we had nothing to fear ; it is inexcusable,
and might well prove disastrous, in the case of the
Japanese. I have heard Americans who pride them-
selves on being well-informed, men whose opinions
are listened to with respect, betray ignorance of Japan

JAPAN 9

and of Japanese institutions which would be ludicrous
under other conditions.

And the ignorance of many intelligent Japanese in
regard to ourselves is no less disheartening. Their
way of thinking is not our way of thinking; many
of their institutions and ideas and ideals are diametric-
ally different from ours. Believe it or not, as you
choose, the great majority of intelligent Japanese
are unable to understand our thinly veiled distrust
and dislike of them. That many of our people do dis-
trust and dislike the Japanese there can be no gainsay-
ing. Yet the average American usually finds some
difficulty in giving for his attitude toward the Jap-
anese a definite and cogent reason. This unreasoning
antipathy was illustrated by an educated and charm-
ing American woman, who had been traveling in
Japan, whom I met on a homeward bound liner.
How did you like the Japanese?" I asked her.
1 did n't like them," she replied.

"Were you ill-treated in Japan? Did you meet
with any discourtesy or injustice?"

"No," she admitted, with some embarrassment. "I
have no complaints whatever to make of the treat-
ment I received. I found them universally courte-
ous." i

"Then why did n't you like them?" I persisted.

<c Well," she explained, "I just made up my mind
before I went to Japan that I was n't going to like
the Japanese, and I did n't."

10 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

That is an extreme case, I admit, but if you will
take the trouble to go into the matter you will find
that that is about as cogent a reason as many Amer-
icans can offer for their dislike of the people of
Nippon.

Underlying all the misunderstandings between the
two nations is race prejudice. Our racial antipathy
for the Japanese is instinctive. It has its source in
the white race's attitude of arrogant superiority
toward all non-white peoples. We inherited it, along
with our Caucasian blood, from our Aryan ancestors.
It is as old as the breed. The Japanese do not
realize that they are meeting in this an old, old prob-
lem; that the American attitude is not dictated by a
wish to place a stigma of inferiority on them, but is
merely the application to them of the Caucasian's his-
toric attitude toward all peoples with tinted skins. If
the Japanese question this, let them observe the atti-
tude of the Americans resident in the Philippines
toward the Filipinos, that of the English toward the
natives of India and Egypt, that of the French
toward their brown-skinned subjects in Indo-China.
But this racial prejudice is by no means one-sided.
The Japanese consider themselves as superior to us
as we consider ourselves superior to them. Make no
mistake about that. The Japanese are by no means
free from that racial dislike for Occidentals which
lies near to the hearts of all Orientals ; but they have

JAPAN 11

the good sense, good manners, and tact to repress
their feelings. That is where they differ from Amer-
icans.

Another reason for American dislike of the Jap-
anese is the latter's assertion of equality. We don't
call it that, of course. We call it conceit— cockiness.
The reason that we get along with another yellow
race, the Chinese, is because they, by their abject
abasement and submissiveness, flatter our sense of
racial superiority. Our pride thus catered to, we
give them a condescending pat of approval, such as
we would give a negro who always "knows his place,"
holds his hat in his hand when he addresses a white
person, says "sir" and "ma'am," and shows no sign of
resenting ill- justice or mistreatment. The Japanese,
on the contrary, stands up for his rights; he is not
at all humble or submissive or in the least awed by
threats, and if an irate American attempts to "put
him in his place," as he is accustomed to do with a
Chinese or a Filipino or a negro, he is more likely
than not to find himself on the way to jail in the
grasp of a small but extremely efficient and unsym-
pathetic policeman.

I asked an American whom I met in Yokohama
if he had enjoyed his stay in Japan.

"Not particularly," he answered. "I don't care
for the Japs ; give me the Chinese every time."

"Why?" I queried.

He pondered my question for a moment.

12 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

'Til sum it up for you like this," he replied. "The
Chinese treat you as a superior; the Japanese treat
you as an equal."

Until Commodore Perry opened Japan to western
civilization and commerce, we held all Mongolians in
contempt, being pleased to consider them as inferior
peoples. But in the case of the Japanese this con-
tempt changed in a few years to a patronizing con-
descension, such as a grown person might have for
a precocious and amusing child. We congratulated
ourselves on having discovered in the Japanese a
sort of infant prodigy; we took in them a proprietary
interest. We watched their rapid rise in the world
with almost paternal gratification. And the Japanese
flattered our self-esteem by their open admiration
and imitation of our methods.

I think that our national antipathy for the Japanese
had its beginnings in their victory over the Russians.
Up to that time we had looked on the Japanese as
a brilliant and ambitious little people whom we had
brought to the notice of the world and for whose
amazing progress we were largely responsible. But

m

when Japan administered a trouncing to the Russians,
who are, after all, fellow-Caucasians, American sen-
timent performed a volte-face almost overnight. We
were as pro-Russian at Portsmouth as we had been
pro- Japanese at Port Arthur. This sudden change in
our attitude toward them has always mystified the

JAPAN 18

Japanese. Yet there is really nothing mystifying
about it We were merely answering the call of the
blood. As long as we believed Japan to be the under
dog, we were for her; but when she became the upper
dog, the old racial prejudice flamed up anew. A
yellow people had humbled and humiliated a Cau-
casian people, and we, as Caucasians, resented it.
It was a blow to our pride of race. (A somewhat
similar manifestation of racial prejudice was observ-
able throughout the United States when the negro
pugilist, Jack Johnson, defeated Jim Jeffries. ) That
a yellow race could defeat a white race had never
occurred to us, and we were correspondingly startled
and alarmed. We abruptly ceased to think of the
Japanese as a third-rate nation of polite, well-mean-
ing, and harmless little men, drinkers of tea and
wearers of kimonos. They became the Yellow Peril.
Though the Japanese are of Asia, they cannot be
treated as we are accustomed to treat other Asiatics.
To attempt to belittle or patronize a nation that can
put into the field three million fighting men and send
to sea a battle fleet not greatly inferior to our own,
would be as ridiculous as it would be short-sighted.
Japan is a striking example to other Oriental races of
the power of the Big Stick. She has never been
subjugated by the foreigner. In spite of, rather than
by the aid of, the white man, she has become one of
the Great Powers, and at Versailles helped to shape
the destinies of millions of Europeans. Yet when she

14 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

claims racial equality we deny and resent it. Our
refusal to treat the Japanese as equals, while at the
same time showing a wholesome respect for the armed
might that is ^behind them, reminds me of an Amer-
ican reserve lieutenant, a Southerner, on duty at a
cantonment where there was a division of colored
troops, who refused to salute a negro captain. He
was called before the commanding officer, who gave
him his choice between saluting the negro or being
tried by court-martial.

"I suppose I 'U have to salute the uniform," he
muttered rebelliously, "but damned if I '11 salute the
nigger inside it."

in

I have already said that racial prejudice is at the
bottom, the very bottom, of the friction between the
two countries. Immediately overlying it is our fear
of Japanese economic competition. For, if you will
look into it, you will find that there has hardly ever
been a conflict between nations into which some
economic question has not entered as the final and
essential factor. Never was this truer than in the
American-Japanese situation. In considering the
question of Japanese economic competition, it would
seem that Americans fail to realize the extent to
which Japanese business is aided* controlled, and
directed by the Japanese Government.

The Japanese business man does not have to fight

JAPAN 15

unaided for foreign trade, as does the American.
He has his government solidly behind him. Govern-
ment-subsidized steamship lines and government-
owned railways give him every possible advantage.
The government's ambassadors, ministers, consuls,
and commercial agents lend him encouragement and
assistance. Allied industries support him. Virtu-
ally all of the industries of the empire belong to trade
guilds, which, like their European prototypes of the
Middle Ages, are licensed by the government and are
granted special privileges and immunities. In short,
the Japanese business man is really a part of a
gigantic trust, which differs from our American
trusts only in that it is a government instead of a
corporation.

The Japanese long since realized that their ma-
terial resources were greatly inferior to those of other
first-class powers, and that the realization of their
national ambitions required great wealth as much as
a great military establishment. They could not
obtain this wealth by agriculture, for not only is
Japan a comparatively small country territorially,
but not more than fifteen per cent, of its area is
capable of profitable cultivation. Moreover, there
are already three hundred and fifty inhabitants to
the square mile, and the birth-rate, like the cost of
living, is steadily rising.

In Japan, as in the United States, to quote the
words of a popular song: "The rich get richer and

16 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

the poor get children." Now the Japanese were
fully conscious of the handicap under which they were
struggling in their race for wealth and power. So
they set about overcoming it by embarking upon a
carefully planned campaign of industrial develop-
ment and commercial expansion which, in its inten-
sity and thoroughness, has no parallel save that which
was waged by Germany prior to August, 1914. Per-
ceiving that they could never hope to overtake their
Western rivals by wading cautiously into the sea of
commercial competition, they resolved to risk every-
thing by plunging boldly into deep water. They
risked everything — and they won. By utilizing to
the utmost what they already possessed, by taxing
themselves until they staggered under the burden,
by borrowing from the Occidental nations until their
credit was stretched to the breaking-point, by speed-
ing up the industrial machine until it was running
twenty-four hours a day and three hundred and sixty-
five days a year, by hard work, rigid economy, and
self-denial, they succeeded in raising the huge sums
which they required for mills, factories, and power-
plants, for railway and steamship lines, for docking
and terminal facilities, for postal and telegraph sys-
tems. To-day, as a result of their courage and amaz-
ing energy, the Japanese are running neck-and-neck
with the United States and England in the race for
the commerce of the world. They are making matches
at a price that has virtually closed the Asiatic markets

JAPAN 17

to their Western competitors. They can deliver
sashes, doors, blinds, and woodenware in North and
South America at so low a rate that our manufac-
turers would be driven out of business were it not
for the protection afforded by our tariff wall. Though
the Japanese do not themselves grow large quantities
of cotton, they purchase the poorer and cheaper
grades of the raw material in India and Egypt, trans-
port it by their government-subsidized steamers and
government-owned rauVays to their government-
assisted factories, where, as the result of low wages
and long hours, it is spun into piece goods which are
sold to the cotton-clad millions of the East at prices
with which American and British manufacturers are
finding profitable competition almost out of the ques-
tion.

In competing with Western nations for the trade of
the Orient, Japan possesses several important advan-
tages. Government control of transportation lines
by land and sea, government subsidies and bounties,
and, in the trade with Asia, short hauls, are vital
factors. The Japanese are so near to the great, rich
markets of the Asian mainland that they can fill
orders from Eastern Siberia, Korea, Manchuria, and
Eastern China before the American manufacturer
could get his shipment aboard a vessel at San Fran-
cisco or Seattle. Furthermore, it is a cardinal prin-
ciple of Japanese commercial policy to constantly
keep in touch with the changing tastes and fashions

18 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

of their Asiatic customers and to give them exactly
what they want, which American manufacturers, all
too frequently, do not. It must also be kept in mind
that the Japanese Government and the Japanese man-
ufacturers work hand in hand in furthering their
commercial ambitions. Several of the greatest indus-
trial enterprises in Japan, as I shall show further
on, are controlled directly or indirectly by the govern-
ment, large blocks of stock being held by members
of the imperial family and by high officials. Strug-
gling enterprises are frequently assisted by govern-
ment bounties, and money at low rates of interest is
often loaned for the same purpose. The principal
Japanese steamship lines are so liberally subsidized
by the government, and pay their seamen such low
wages, that it is impossible for American-owned ves-
sels, with highly-paid white crews and no govern-
ment subsidies, to compete with them. As a result,
the carrying trade of the Pacific is in Japanese hands.
Thus it will be seen that, in their struggle for the
trade of the Orient, American firms are not merely
competing against Japanese firms. In effect, they
are competing against the Japanese Government.

And here is another point which should be empha-
sized. American business men bear no such relation
to their government as Japanese business men bear
to theirs. Unlike Japan and Germany, in both of
which countries foreign politics and foreign com-
merce are closely interrelated, the United States does

J

JAPAN 19

not utilize the commercial ventures of its citizens to
advance its foreign policies. Indeed, beyond giving
half-hearted and usually inefficient protection in case
of menace to their lives and property, the government
at Washington does not concern itself at all with the
business interests of its citizens oversea. When an
American firm makes a foreign loan, or establishes
a bank, or leases harbor or shore rights, or secures a
contract, or obtains a concession, every one knows that
the venture is without political significance, present
or prospective. On the other hand, every move made
by Japanese commercial interests abroad has some
degree of political significance. If a Japanese firm
leases harbor or shore rights in a foreign country,
that lease is to all intents and purposes a government
one, and may be controlled as such whenever the
government chooses. Hence the alarm which was
felt by well-informed Americans when it was reported
that a Japanese business house was negotiating with
the Mexican Government for the lease of a harbor
on Magdalena Bay — for they recognized how simple
a matter it would be for the Japanese Government to
take over that lease and transform an innocent com-
mercial harbor into a coaling station or naval base.
Again, the Japanese Government has not hesitated
to utilize the concessions held by its subjects in China
to coerce the government at Peking. In short, every
Japanese merchant who establishes himself abroad
automatically becomes a listening-post for the Tokio

20 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

Foreign Office, a point cfccppui for Japanese aggres-
sion, a picket eternally on the alert to serve the polit-
ical interests of Nippon. 1

No one can travel in the Far East without being
struck by tiie bitterness and unanimity with which
foreign business men, American and European alike,
condemn Japanese business methods. Whether jus-
tified or not, this feeling of disapproval and distrust
has done more than anything else, save only the racial
prejudice to which I have already referred, to em-
bitter the relations between the United States and
Japan. Therefore, delicate as the question is, I pur-
pose to discuss it with the utmost frankness. To
ignore it in order to avoid offending Japanese suscep-
tibilities would be tantamount to permitting a wound
to fester because opening it would cause the patient
pain.

I will give the foreigner's side first. Here is the
way an American importer, whom I met in Yoko-
hama, expressed himself:

"The Japanese business man has two great faults
— conceit and deceit. In his business relations he is
overbearing and underdeveloped. In order to make
an immediate profit, he will lose a life-long and valu-
able customer. Though it frequently happens that

A A high Japanese official, to whom I submitted the proofs of this
chapter for correction, professes to see a parallel to this situation in the
Slems-Carey and American International Corporation railway contracts In
China. In this I do not agree with him. £. A. P.

JAPAN 21

he does not understand what the foreign buyer is
talking about, his vanity will not permit him to admit
his ignorance; instead, he will accept the order and
then fill it unsatisfactorily. He will accept an order
for anything, whether he can deliver it or not. He
would accept an order for the Brooklyn Bridge, f .o.b.
next Thursday, Kioto — hoping that something might
turn up in the meantime that would enable him to
fill it."

An Englishman doing business in Japan said to
me:

"The Japanese has his nerve only on a rising
market. As soon as the market shows signs of falling,
he hesitates at nothing to get from under. When
the silk market rose, hundreds of Japanese firms de-
faulted on orders which they had already accepted
from foreign importers, as they would have lost
money at the old prices. When, on the other hand,
there was a slump in the money market in the spring
of 1920, the customs warehouses at Yokohama and
Kobe were piled high with goods ordered from
abroad for which the consignees refused to accept
delivery."

Another American importer, who has made semi-
annual buying trips to Japan for more than a quarter
of a century and who has a genuine liking for the
Japanese, told me, with regret in his tone, that, of all
the firms with whom he did business, those upon

22 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

whom he could rely implicitly to send him goods of
the same quality as their samples could be numbered
on the fingers of one hand.

I cite these complaints because they are typical of
many I heard while I was in the Far East. That does
not mean, however, that I consider them entirely
justified, for I do not. Their very bitterness reveals
the prejudice which gave birth to some of them and
added exaggeration to others. But I concluded that
where there was so much smoke there must be some
flame, so I made it my business to question as many
foreign business men as I could, as well as commer-
cial attaches and consuls, both European and Amer-
ican. From their replies I gathered that a trademark,
copyright, or patent does not, as a rule, prevent a Jap-
anese manufacturer from appropriating any idea of
which he can make use; though I am glad to say
that recent legislation, combined with an awakening
national conscience, has done much to protect the
foreigner from such abuses. For example, "Bentley's
Code," which sells in the United States for thirty
dollars and which is fully protected by copyright, has
been copied by a Japanese publishing house, which
sells it for ten dollars. A famous brand of safety
razor, which sells in the United States for five dollars,
is copied by the Japanese in everything save quality,
and is marketed by them, under the originator's name
and in a facsimile of the original package, for one-
fifth of the price charged for the genuine article.

JAPAN 28

The same is true of widely advertised brands of soap,
tooth paste, talcum powder, perfume, and other toilet
preparations. An imitation of Pond's Extract, for
instance, is sold in a bottle exactly like that contain-
ing the American-made article except that a faint
line, scarcely discernible, turns the P into an R. This
infringement was fought in the Japanese courts, how-
ever, which decided in favor of the plaintiff. A par-
ticularly flagrant example of these questionable com-
mercial methods came to light in the spring of 1920
at Tientsin, when the American consul-general
made an official protest against the action of the Jap-
anese chamber of commerce of that city, which had
sent broadcast thousands of hand-bills intimating that
a certain American trading company, which had be-
come a dangerous competitor of Japanese firms, was
on the verge of insolvency — a statement which was en-
tirely without foundation in fact. The Japanese
chamber of commerce refused to retract its allega-
tions and the American house was nearly ruined.

These are only a few examples of those Japanese
business practises to which foreigners object. I heard
similar stories from almost every American business
man whom I met in the East. Indeed, I cannot
recall having talked with a single foreigner (with a
solitary exception) doing business with the Japanese,
who did not have some complaint to make of their
practise of imitating patented or copyrighted articles,
of substituting inferior goods, of giving short weight,

24 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

i

and of not keeping their 1 engagements when it suited
them to break them. That the Japanese Government
recognizes and deplores the methods of certain Jap-
anese business men is shown by the following quota-
tion from the report of the Japanese consul-general
at Bombay, as quoted in the Japan Weekly Chron-
icle:

Although I am confident that the credit of Japanese mer-
chants in general is not so low as is represented by a small
section of the foreign merchants, yet it is to be deplored
as an indisputable fact that there is one sort of short-
sighted dishonest Japanese merchants who are always eager
to obtain a temporary profit just before their eyes, who
resort to extremely detestable and crafty expedients. They
will send samples of goods far superior in quality in com-
parison with the price quoted, and when they receive orders
according to these samples, they never manufacture goods
equal to the samples in quality, but manufacture and ship
inferior goods suitable to the price.

This commercial unscrupulousness has worked
great injury to the friendly relations of Japan and
the United States. It has engendered in American
business men a distrust and a dislike which it will take
years to eradicate. This was strikingly illustrated one
evening in the smoking-room of a trans-Pacific liner.
While chatting with a group of returning American
business men I casually mentioned the case of a fel-
low-countryman who had recently brought American
commercial methods into disrepute by giving "exclu-
sive" agencies for certain widely advertised articles to
several firms in the same city. Instead of deploring

JAPAN 25

such trickery, my auditors applauded it almost to a
man. "Finer' they exclaimed. "Good work! Glad
to hear of a Yankee who can heat the Japs at their
own game! 9 ' They were as jubilant over that dis-
honest American's success in turning the tables on
the Japanese as was the American public when it
learned that we had perfected a poison gas more hor-
rible in its effects than any in use by the Germans.

I heard other criticisms, too, which, if they are jus-
tified, would indicate that the Japanese Government
itself sometimes aids Japanese business by methods
which are not generally considered fair. These in-
cluded charges that the government-owned railways
give rebates to Japanese shippers; that Japanese
freight is expedited by railway and steamship lines
while that shipped by foreign firms is subjected to
ruinous delay; that, owing to the South Manchuria
Railway being under Japanese control, Japanese mer-
chants shipping their goods into Manchuria have fre-
quently been able to evade the customs, whereas goods
of foreign origin are subject to full duties; that im-
portant commercial messages sent over Japanese
cables have been revealed to the senders' Japanese
competitors, the messages in some cases not having
been delivered to the addressees at all. 1

Foreign business men in the East often assert that

*I am informed by an official of the Japanese Foreign Office that
Japanese business men in the United States are making precisely the
same complaints in regard to the handling of messages 07 American
cable companies. £• A. P.

26 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

the amazing commercial success of the Japanese is
mainly due to such methods. On the contrary, it
has been achieved in spite of them. Japan's com-
mercial rise is due, as I have already shown, to the
courage, energy, industry, and self-denial of the Jap-
anese nation. It should he added, however, that the
tremendous commercial boom which reached its zenith
in 1919-20 was largely the result of artificial and tem-
porary conditions. At a period when the rest of the
world was engaged in a life-and-death struggle,
Japan, far from the battlefields, was free to engage
in commerce, and she possessed, moreover, certain
articles which other nations must have and for which
they had to pay any price she demanded. Nor could
the Japanese merchant, any more than the American,
realize that this was a purely temporary condition and
could not continue indefinitely.

Now, mind you, I do not wish to be understood
as suggesting that commercial trickery is character-
istic of Japanese business men as a class. There are
business houses in Japan — many of them — which meet
their obligations as punctiliously, which fill their com-
mitments as scrupulously, which maintain as high a
standard of business honor, as the most reputable
firms in the United States. But, unfortunately, there
are many — altogether too many — which do not. It
seems a thousand pities that the honest and far-
sighted business men of Japan and the Japanese trade
guilds and chambers of commerce do not take ener-

JAPAN 27

getic steps to stamp out commercial trickery, if for
no other reason than the effect it would have on for-
eign opinion. The series of conferences held in Tokio
in 1920 between a self-appointed delegation of Amer-
ican bankers and business men and a number of rep-
resentative Japanese offered a splendid opportunity
for a candid discussion of this delicate and irritating
question. If the Americans, instead of confining
themselves to hands-across-the-sea sentiments and
platitudinous expressions of friendship, had had the
courage to tell the high-minded Japanese who were
their hosts how objectionable such methods are to
Americans and what incalculable harm they are caus-
ing to Japanese- American relations, it would have
worked wonders in promoting a better understanding
between the two peoples.

Despite what I have felt compelled to say about
the methods of a section of the Japanese commercial
class, I am convinced that the Japanese people, as a
race, are honest. Though pocket-picking is said to be
on the increase in Japan, burglary and highway rob-
bery are extremely rare, while the murders, shooting
affrays, daylight robberies, and hold-ups which have
become commonplaces in American cities are virtually
unknown. I should feel as safe at midnight in the
meanest street of a Japanese city as I should on Com-
monwealth Avenue in Boston — considerably safer,
indeed, than I should on certain New York thorough-
fares after nightfall. I asked an American woman

28 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

who has lived for many years in Japan if she consid-
ered the Japanese honest.

"I never think of locking the doors or windows of
my house in Yokohama," she replied, "yet I have
never had anything stolen. But when I was staying
last winter at a fashionable hotel in New York, I was
robbed of money, jewels, and clothing the very night
of my arrival."

Nor could I discover any substantiation of the
oft-repeated assertion that fiduciary positions in Jap-
anese banks are held by Chinese. Certainly this is
not true of Japanese-controlled institutions, such as
the Yokohama Specie Bank, the Bank of Japan, and
the Dai Ichi Ginko, as I can attest from personal
observation. It is true that Chinese are employed in
considerable numbers in minor positions of trust in
the Japanese branches of foreign banks, such as the
Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation and
the Bank of India, Australia & New Zealand, but
these have generally come over from China with the
banks 9 European officials, their employment denoting
no lack of faith in Japanese integrity. Yet such
stories, spread broadcast by superficial and usually
prejudiced observers, have helped to give Americans
a totally erroneous impression of the Japanese.

My personal opinion is that the commercial trickery
practised in Japan is not due to any inherent dis-
honesty in the Japanese character, but rather to the
contempt in which merchants were held in that

JAPAN 29

country for centuries. Until recent years the position
of the merchant in Japan was analogous to that of
the Jew in the Europe of the Middle Ages. He was
at the bottom of the social scale. At the top was the
noble ; then came the samurai, or professional fighting
man ; followed in turn by the farmer and the artisan ;
and last of all came the merchant. The farmer and
the artisan have always held a higher place than the
merchant because they are producers, whereas the
merchant was looked upon as a huckster, a haggler, a
bargainer, who made his living by his wits. As a
result, business was in the hands of a low class of
Japanese. Trading was regarded as beneath the dig-
nity of a gentleman. Furthermore, the Japanese
merchant has had less than seventy years in which to
learn the rules of the business game as it is played
in the West. Coming from a despised and down*
trodden class, is it any wonder that in that brief
span he has not wholly eradicated his ancient methods,
that he has not yet acquired all our Western virtues
and ideals? The Jew has been under the influence of
the West for two thousand years, yet his business
ethics are not always beyond reproach. Let us, then,
be charitable in judging the Japanese.

Nor should we forget that barely a score of years
have passed since American business houses com*
monly practised the very methods of which we com-
plain so bitterly when they are practised by the Jap-
anese. It is within the memory of most of us when

80 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

rebates, discriminatory freight rates, infringements
of copyrights and patents, substitution, adulteration,
evasion of customs, and the ruthless crushing of com-
petition by unfair methods were so common in the
United States as scarcely to provoke comment. If
you question this, read the early history of the Stand-
ard Oil Company, of the sugar, beef, and steel trusts,
or of certain of our great railway systems. The truth
of the matter is that the Japanese to-day are about
where we were two decades ago. Not having entered
the commercial contest until long after we did, it is
not surprising that their commercial ethics are still
several laps behind our own. Business ethics in the
island empire are at present undergoing the same
rehabilitation and purification that were forced upon
American business by an outraged public opinion.
And, according to most unprejudiced observers,
that transformation is being effected with remarkable
rapidity. So why not stop throwing stones and give
the Japanese a chance? Rome was not built in a day.

There is yet another explanation of the question-
able business usages practised by certain Japanese
merchants. And that explanation, curiously enough,
points straight at ourselves. It remained for the late
Premier Hara — himself a business man and the first
commoner to hold the position of prime minister —
to bring that embarrassing fact to my attention.

"You should not forget that my people learned
what they know of modern business methods from

JAPAN 81

your own countrymen," he reminded me. "It was
your Commodore Perry who, in the face of Japanese
opposition, opened Japan to American commerce. It
was from the American traders who followed him
that the Japanese received their first lessons in the
business ethics of the West. The early American
traders, in the methods they practised, provided the
Japanese with anything but a laudable example. If
they could cheat a Japanese, they considered it highly
creditable; they took advantage of his ignorance by
selling him inferior goods and by driving sharp bar-
gains; they constantly bamboozled him. Is it any
wonder, then, that the Japanese merchant, patterning
his methods on those pursued by the Americans,
adopted American commercial trickery along with
other things? But mind you," he added, "I am not
condoning commercial trickery among my people. I
am only explaining it."

IV

In the preceding pages I have endeavored to show
how important are the racial and economic elements
in their effect on American-Japanese relations. We
now come to a consideration of the political factor. In
order to estimate this factor at its true importance, it
is necessary to envisage the trying political situation
in which Japan finds herself.

Since their victory over the Russians in 1904 the
Japanese have seen themselves gradually encircled

82 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

by a ring of unsympathetic and suspicious, if not
openly hostile peoples. Overshadowing the island
empire on the north is the great bulk of Bolshevist
Russia, still smarting from the memories of the Yalu
River and Port Arthur, and bitterly resentful of
Japan's military occupation of Eastern Siberia and
Northern Sakhalin. Every patriotic Russian feels
that Japan, in occupying these territories, has taken
unfair advantage of Russia's temporary helplessness ;
he listens cynically to the protestations of the Jap-
anese Government that it has occupied them merely
in order to keep at arm's length the menace of Bol-
shevism and that it will withdraw its troops as soon
as this menace disappears.

To the west, the Koreans, though now officially
Japanese subjects, are in a state of incipient revolt,
to which they have been driven by the excesses of the
Japanese military and the harshness of Japanese
rule. To the southeast, China, huge and inert, loathes
and fears her island neighbor, their common hatred
of Japan being the one tie which binds the diverse
elements of the republic together. As a protest
against Japanese aggression in Manchuria and Shan-
tung the Chinese have instituted a boycott of Japanese
goods, which is gravely affecting Japanese commerce
throughout the Farther East. In regions as remote
from the seat of the controversy as the Celebes and
Borneo, as Siam, the Straits Settlements, and Java, I
found Japanese merchants being forced out of busi-

JAPAN 88

ness because the Chinese living in those countries re-
fused to trade with them or to purchase goods of any
one else who traded with them. In Formosa, taken
from China as spoils of war in 1895, the head-hunting
savages who inhabit the mountains of the interior
remain unsubjugated, only the Guard Line, a series
of armed blockhouses connected by electrically
charged entanglements, standing between the Jap-
anese settlers and massacre.

In the Philippines there is always present the bogey
of Japanese imperialism, both the Filipinos and the
American residents being convinced that Japan is
looking forward to the day when she can add those
rich and tempting islands to her possessions. In far-
distant Australia and New Zealand the Japanese are
distrusted and disliked, stringent legislative measures
having recently been adopted to prevent further Jap-
anese immigration into those commonwealths. On
the Pacific coast of the United States and Canada a
violent anti-Japanese agitation is in full swing, new
and severer legislation being constantly directed
against them. In Hawaii, where the Japanese out-
number all the other elements of the population put
together, the Americans and Kanakas view the situa-
tion with acute apprehension. 1

Influenced by the frankly hostile attitude of her
great overseas dominions, and fearful of its effect on
her relations with the United States, England eagerly

1 There were 100,974 Japanese in Hawaii in 1990.

84 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

seized the opportunity, afforded by America's offer
at the Washington Conference, of substituting the
Four-Power Treaty for the Anglo-Japanese Al-
liance. Holland, having ever in the front of her
mind her great, rich colonies in the East Indies, looks
with a suspicious eye on Japan's steady territorial
expansion and on the suggestive augmentation of her
naval and military establishments. France, con-
stantly seeking new markets, views with thinly veiled
apprehension Japan's attempts to attain political and
commercial domination in China. Nor is Germany
likely either to forget or forgive the conquest of
Tsingtau and her former insular possessions in the
Pacific. Not only has Japan aroused the suspicions
of the white races, but she has antagonized and
alienated the yellow races who are her nearest
neighbors. As a result she found herself, at the open-
ing of the Washington Conference, as completely
isolated, as universally distrusted, as was Germany
at the beginning of 1914.

The Japanese have been hurt and bewildered by
this world-wide suspicion. Yet, instead of attempting
to win back the good-will of the West, which was
theirs until little more than a decade ago, by giving
convincing proofs of their peaceable intentions; in-
stead of making an effort to regain the confidence of
half a billion Chinese and Russians by a prompt with-
drawal from their soil and abstention from further
interference in their affairs, the Japanese made

JAPAN 85

the psychological blunder of adopting an attitude of
stubbornness and defiance. They replied to criticisms
by embarking on a military program which, had it
been adhered to, would have made them the greatest
military power on earth. Their naval plans called
for a neck-and-neck shipbuilding race with the United
States; they had steadily strengthened their occupa-
tional forces on the mainland of Asia, instead of show-
ing a disposition to withdraw them. They seemed
utterly incapable of realizing that the world has, in
its millions of soldier dead and its billions of war
debt, the very best of reasons for being suspicious of
imperialistic nations ; that it is in no mood to tolerate
anything savoring of militarism. The peoples of the
world had hoped that those dread specters, militarism
and imperialism, had passed with the Hohenzollerns,
never to return. Is it any wonder, then, that they
viewed with distrust a nation which, judged by its
actions, seemed bent on recalling them? This distrust
of Japanese intentions was largely dispelled, however,
by Japan's concurrence in the Hughes program for
the limitation of naval armaments.

v

The key to Japanese militarism and imperialism is
to be found in the dual government that exists in
Japan. It is another case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde, but the victim of this dual personality, instead

86 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

of being an individual, is a nation. There is the con-
stitutional government, functioning in the open,
normal, aboveboard, conciliatory, presumably sincere.
But behind it, in the shadows, lurks a cloaked and
mysterious government, furtive, untrustworthy, pre-
dacious, wholly evil. Unfortunately for Japan and
for the world, this invisible government is the more
powerful of the two. Times without number the Dr.
Jekyll government has adopted some altruistic course
of action only to have the Mr. Hyde government step
in and, by an exertion of its mysterious power, set it
all at naught. It is a most curious and complicated
situation, without parallel in any other country in
the world. Let me see if I can explain it, for its clear
and complete comprehension is absolutely essential
to an intelligent understanding of those tortuous and
seemingly contradictory policies pursued by Japan in
her relations with foreign nations, which have so per-
plexed and alarmed the world.

To begin with, you must understand that Japan is
nominally governed by a constitutional government,
consisting of a cabinet, a legislative assembly known as
the Diet, and a civil bureaucracy composed of the
chiefs of the various administrative departments and
their subordinates. This is the government with which
the world is familiar. But there is also an invisible
government, an unseen empire, ^composed of a clique
of officers holding high rank in the army and navy,
certain statesmen with military sympathies and

JAPAN «7

affiliations, and a few representatives of big business
and finance. The constitutional government functions
through the cabinet, and, in its relations with foreign
nations, through the foreign office, being represented
abroad by regularly accredited ambassadors, ministers,
and consuls. The invisible government functions
through the general staff, its activities abroad being
carried on by a great number of secret agents, whose
identities can only be guessed at, and by the military
attaches attached to the various embassies and lega-
tions, who, though ostensibly under the orders of their
respective ambassadors and ministers are, in reality,
answerable only to the general staff. Japanese
policy, particularly in foreign affairs, is invariably
shaped by this unseen government, whose wishes are
generally translated into action by the constitutional
government, on which it is able to exert powerful pres-
sure. The two governments, whose interests are by
no means always opposed, are of necessity more or less
closely correlated, like interlocking directorates. For
example, many of the permanent civil officials of the
constitutional government, such as bureau chiefs and
the members of their staffs, are drawn from the mili-
taristic clique, which is identical with the unseen gov-
ernment, with which, as might be expected, they work
in harmony. Thus it will be seen that, whereas the
militarists who compose the invisible government form
a bloc bound together by their mutual interests and
ambitions and working always in unison, the constitu-

88 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

tional government is weakened by the militarists who
have insinuated themselves into its organization and
who, in the event of a conflict between the constitu-
tional government and the unseen government, in-
variably lend their power and influence to the latter.

At the head of the Japanese State stands the em-
peror, generally spoken of by foreigners as the
Mikado ("Honorable Gate," a title comparable with
Sublime Porte) , and by his own subjects as Tenno, or
Heavenly King. According to Japanese history,
which reckons from 660 B.C., when Jimmu ascended
the throne, the present Emperor, Yoshihito, is the
one hundred and twenty-second ruler of his line. 1 But
as written records do not carry us back further than
712 A.D., the reigns and periods of the early monarchs
are more or less apocryphal. Still the fact remains
that Japan has been ruled by an unbroken dynasty
ever since the dawn of her history, in which respect
she is unique among the nations of the world.

The whole scheme of government in Japan is based
on the recognition of the divine origin of the emperor.
According to popular belief, he is directly descended
from the Deity. By the terms of the constitution he
combines in himself the rights of sovereignty and
exercises the whole of the executive powers, with the

advice and assistance of the ten ministers who compose

1 In December, 1991, owing to the mental condition of the emperor,
Crown Prince Hirohito was proclaimed Regent of Japan.

JAPAN «9

his cabinet. Supplementing the cabinet is the Privy
Council, a purely advisory body of thirty-nine mem-
bers (including the ten cabinet ministers), which is
only consulted upon important matters and policies.
The emperor is the supreme commander of the army
and the navy. He alone can declare war, make peace,
and conclude treaties. He convokes the Imperial
Diet, opens, closes, and prorogues it, and dissolves
the House of Representatives. Should a national
crisis or an urgent necessity arise when the Diet is
not in session, the emperor may issue imperial edicts
which take the place of laws, though such edicts must
be submitted to the Diet at its next session, when, if
not approved, they become invalid. Thus it will be
seen that, though Japan is, in theory, a constitutional
monarchy, the emperor is vested with virtually abso-
lute power. But it should be added that his abso-
lutism has never degenerated into despotism or
tyranny. In fact, he is more or less a figurehead so
far as the administration of the government is con-
cerned, dwelling in Olympian aloofness and ruling
by proxy. He is regarded by his people not as a
temporal ruler, but rather as a patriarch, a demigod,
a direct representative of Heaven. In order to
strengthen their own position, the militarists who sur-
round the emperor have assiduously encouraged the
people in this delusion. They have fostered among
the masses the belief that the emperor can do no
wrong, that no sacrifice is too great for a son or

40 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

daughter of Nippon to make for him, that to so
much as question his Heaven-bestowed authority is
the apotheosis of sacrilege. From the blind obedience
to the sovereign thus created, which involves a curious
mixture of religion and patriotism difficult for the
Western mind to comprehend, the militarists derive
their power.

I have said that, according to the terms of the con-
stitution, the emperor is supposed to exercise the ex-
ecutive power with the advice and assistance of his
cabinet. But between the cabinet and the crown
stand a rapidly diminishing body of men who are
known as the Genro, or Elder Statesmen. This
sacred and secret inner circle, as at present consti-
tuted, has only two members: Marquis Saionji and
Marquis Matsukata. This duumvirate of old men is
the mentor and mouthpiece of divinity itself; they,
with Field Marshal Uyehara, the chief of the general
staff, constitute the occult power which hedges the
imperial throne ; they are the real rulers of Japan.

Now let me make it clear that the Elder Statesmen
are neither appointed nor elected. They have no legal
status. They are not recognized by the Japanese con-
stitution or in the laws of Japan. You will find no
mention of them in the Japan "Year Book" or other
official publications. Indeed, there is no such office
as that of Elder Statesman per se. Though they
control the government, form cabinets, and shape the
national policy, they are not officials, save as they are

JAPAN 41

members of the Privy Council and the House of Peers.
They are merely a little group of veteran counselors,
representatives of the great clans, who have grown
by mere survival and the confidence reposed in them
by the emperor to be the most powerful influence in
Japan.

Imagine, if you can, a pair of American statesmen
— Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge, let us say
— attaining such unlimited political power that the
President of the United States was their mouth-
piece and the heads of the executive departments
of the government their obedient instruments, and re-
taining such power, irrespective of which political
party was in the saddle, through administration
after administration. That is by no means an
exact parallel, but it is the best that I can offer of a
situation that is without parallel in any other coun-
try.

When the shogunate was abolished in 1868 and the
unification of the country under the youthful Em-
peror Mutsuhito begun, the task of reconstruction
was undertaken by the dcdmyos, or feudal nobles.
They became the officials of the new government and
directed the transformation of Japan into a modern
state. The present Genro, then young men, played
minor parts in the restoration. But, as the years
passed, they gradually ascended the political ladder
and, as the older men died or retired from office, they
automatically succeeded them, themselves eventually

42 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

becoming ministers of the crown. More years slipped
by, and they, now old themselves, in turn gave way
to younger men. But, in relinquishing office, they
did not relinquish their power. Autocrats by
training, brought up in an atmosphere of mili-
tarism, contemptuously believing with Hegel
that "the people is that portion of the state which
does not know what it wills," they viewed with deep
misgivings the democratic tendencies which were
gradually manifesting themselves in the new Japan.
They were sincere in their convictions that the safety
of the empire was being jeopardized by the growing
spirit of democracy among certain elements of the
population. They felt that they alone stood between
the nation and ruin. Conservatives and reactionaries
to the very marrow, they might have said with the
French king, "Aprfo moi le deluge" So, instead of
retiring from public affairs and contenting them-
selves with an existence of innocuous desuetude, like
superannuated European statesmen, they merely
shifted their position, withdrawing from the fierce
glare that beats upon the front of the throne to the
shadows at its rear. From there, themselves unseen,
they can see all that happens ; they are always at the
elbow of the sovereign, who, because he trusts them
implicitly, willingly issues as commands the sugges-
tions which they whisper in his ear.

The prerogatives of the crown, as I have already
shown, are very great, and they are exercised as the

JAPAN 48

Elder Statesmen "advise." Ministers rise and fall,
but the Genro abide, independent of cabinet and diet
alike and beyond the reach of either. There you find
the explanation of why the Japanese cabinet does not
wield the power of European ministries and why
changes of cabinet seldom result in changes of national
policy. For, though parties come and go, the Genro
remain forever — and the emperor does as they tell
him to do. No further explanation is needed, surely,
of why Japan, whose government is under the control
of a little group of self-appointed and reactionary
dictators, is, though greatly advanced for an Asiatic
power, still far behind those Western nations whose
governments are in the hands of individuals and
bodies chosen by the people.

So closely associated with the Elder Statesmen
that he might almost be considered one of them is
the chief of the general staff, who, everything con-
sidered, is probably the most powerful single indi-
vidual in the empire to-day. His title is really a
misnomer, for, whereas in other countries the chief
of the general staff is the executive head of the army
alone, in Japan the chief of the general staff exercises
as much influence in naval, colonial, and foreign affairs
as he does in those of the army. He is the actual head
of all the armed forces of the empire on land and sea.
He occupies much the same position in the invisible
government that the premier does in the constitutional
government. The only superior authority recognized

44 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

by the premier is the emperor; the only superior
authority recognized by the chief of the general staff
is the Genro. And, as the emperor accepts without
question the decisions of the Genro, it follows that
the chief of the general staff occupies a position of
altogether extraordinary power. I have heard it
asserted, indeed, that he can override the decisions
of the premier and even force him and his cabinet
to resign, but this is probably an exaggeration.

That the chief of staff might be able, with the
concurrence of the Elder Statesmen, to wreck a min-
istry is due to the curious constitution of the Japanese
cabinet. Of the ten members of the cabinet, two — the
minister of war, who must always be an army officer
of a grade not lower than major-general, and the min-
ister of marine, who must always be a naval officer of
a grade not lower than rear-admiral — are not answer-
able for their actions to the premier and frequently
act independently of him, being responsible only to
the emperor, which, translated, means the Elder
Statesmen and the chief of the general staff. As a re-
sult of this anomalous situation, these ministers, tak-
ing their orders from the chief of the general staff,
who has the support of the Geuro, who in turn have
the support of the emperor, can, and frequently do,
defy the premier and block legislation. Due to the
constitutional provision that these posts can be held
only by military and naval men of high rank, their
incumbents always represent the military party and

JAPAN 45

can be depended upon to consistently oppose any pol-
icy of an anti-militaristic nature.

As the members of the cabinet are appointed by
the emperor, instead of, as in most European
countries, by the premier, it is self-evident that the
ministers of war and marine are always persona
gratissima to the Elder Statesmen and the chief of
the general staff. The remaining members of the
cabinet, including the premier, though they may not
always be persona grata, or even entirely acceptable,
to that august and all-powerful quartet, are rarely
openly hostile to it, for the very good reason, as the
Jiji Shimpo, the Times of Japan, puts it, that "In
this country the work of cabinet-making is at present
in the hands of the Elder Statesmen." It is scarcely
probable, then, that the Genro, whose advice the
sovereign invariably accepts in such matters, would
give their approval to the appointment of a minister
who was likely to antagonize them. This is not say-
ing, however, that all of the present members of the
cabinet meet with the unqualified approval of the
Genro, or that they represent the latter's views. Cer-
tain of them, indeed, are supposed to be in opposition
to the principles for which the Genro stand. But the
Genro are fully awake to the growing power of pub-
lic opinion and are far too shrewd to alienate it by
refusing to sanction the appointment as minister of
a man possessed of a powerful popular backing, even
if his views do not concur with their own. But this

46 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

much can be said : If a cabinet minister dared to defy
the Elder Statesmen or the chief of the general staff
on some really vital question, if he consistently ob-
structed their policies, he would almost certainly be
forced to resign. For, in a contest between the cab-
inet and the militarists, the latter always win.

The procedure followed by the military party in
wrecking a cabinet is as simple as it is effective. If
it does not approve of the cabinet's policy, the Genro
and the chief of the general staff send for the min-
ister of war and tell him to resign. The premier, who,
as I have already explained, is limited by law in his
selection of a successor to the retiring minister, offers
the portfolio in turn to one after another of the small
group of army officers who, by virtue of their rank,
are eligible to accept it under the provisions of the
constitution. Having been coached in advance by the
chief of the general staff, each of them politely de-
clines. Thereupon the prime minister is compelled
to admit his inability to complete his cabinet. In
Japan such an admission is tantamount to withdrawal
from public life, whereupon the emperor offers the
vacant premiership to some statesman more willing
to accept the dictation of the militarists.

The correspondent of the New York Herald, Mr.
Louis Seibold, has quoted "one of the most progres-
sive of Japanese leaders" as saying, in this connec-
tion:

JAPAN 47

The general staff of Japan is quite as powerful as was the
general staff that induced the German kaiser to make war
upon the rest of the world. The Japanese General Staff
controls the mental processes of the emperor to an even
greater extent than was true in Germany in 1914. It, in
turn, controls the cabinet. The minister of war, instead of
being the master of the general staff, is its servant. It
says to him, "You provide us with the recruits, war material,
and supplies, and we will decide what to do with all these
things. It is not for you to say." That is precisely what
the general staff, with the consent of the emperor, told
Premier Hara's cabinet a few weeks ago, when the wisdom
of deferring to universal sentiment regarding the military
activities of the government in Shantung and Siberia was
broached. In other words, the general staff told the gov-
ernment to mind its own business, which it did not consider
to be of a military character.

It might be supposed that, when the militarists thus
attempt to dictate to the constitutional government,
the Diet would promptly bring them to terms by re-
fusing to vote the appropriations necessary for the
maintenance of the military establishment. And that
is exactly what would happen in most Western
countries. But not so in Japan. For the militarists
long since foresaw and guarded against just such a
contingency by inserting in the constitution an
article providing that budgets can be automatically
reenacted from year to year. Article 71 of the Jap-
anese Constitution reads as follows: "When the Im-
perial Diet has not voted on the Budget, or when
the Budget has not been brought into actual existence,
the Government shall carry out the Budget for the
preceding year."

48 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

Moreover, as the militarists have direct access to the
emperor and to the funds of the imperial household,
which is the richest in the world, they never lack for
money. Indeed, when all is said and done, it is they
who hold the national purse-strings. It will be seen,
therefore, that the late progressive premier, Mr.
Hara, was in a trying and none too strong position.
The military party and the forces of reaction, as typi-
fied by the Genro and the chief of the general staff,
had too much power for him. Nothing is more indica-
tive of the increasing strength of democracy in Japan
than the fact that Premier Hara, himself a progres-
sive and a man of the people, remained in office as
long as he did.

The effect on foreign opinion of the constant
usurpation of power by the invisible government is
clearly recognized by the liberal element in Japan, as
witness a recent editorial in the YornirYuri Skimbwn:

It is regrettable that the declarations of the Japanese
Government are often not taken seriously. The Powers
regard Japan as a country that does n't mean what it says.
The most important reasons for this will be found in the
actions of the militarists, whose utterances are the cause
of the Government's attitude being misunderstood abroad.
Unless the militarist evil is stamped out, a hundred declara-
tions disavowing territorial ambitions will not be able to
convince the Powers.

The repeated failures to keep her agreements,
which have cost Japan the confidence of other nations,

FUJIYAMA. THE SACKED MOUNTAIN, AND FUJI RIVER

SUNSET IN SHIBA PARK, TOKYO

A RELIGIOUS PROCESSION IN KIOTO

s>

JAPAN 49

are not due to hypocrisy or insincerity on the part
of the Japanese Government. They are due to the
fact that the government is constantly flouted and
overridden by the military party. Japan's failure to
abide by her promise to evacuate Siberia upon the
withdrawal of the American and European troops
provides a case in point. This commitment was made
to the United States and her European associates by
the constitutional government of Japan as repre-
sented by Premier Hara. But the militarists wished
Japan to remain in Siberia for reasons of their own,
so, at the very time the premier was notifying the
Western Powers of Japan's intention to withdraw
her Siberian garrisons, the general staff, unknown to
the premier, was rushing troops north to reenforce
them.

The militarists placed the constitutional govern-
ment in an almost equally embarrassing situation in
Korea. Premier Hara, stirred to action by the ex-
cesses of the Japanese soldiery, issued orders that the
military forces in Korea should be subordinated to
the civil authorities, but the military men, secure in
a knowledge of their power, virtually refused to obey
these orders, doing everything that they dared to
obstruct the newly appointed governor-general,
Baron Saito, in carrying out the promised reforms.

It is the military party, again, that applies the
screws to the distracted government of China, com-

50 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

pelling it to grant to Japanese firms concessions of
one kind and another which give Japan virtually com-
plete control in the regions where the concessions
are operative. It is the military party that buys up
the Chinese generals and politicians, hatches the plots,
and directs the propaganda that produce the sporadic
revolutions which are tearing China to pieces.

This continued exercise of irresponsible authority
by the military party is the most important and the
most dangerous factor in the whole Japanese Ques-
tion. Until the invisible government is suppressed
in favor of the constitutional government, there can
be no real hope of a satisfactory understanding be-
tween the United States and Japan. A democracy
like ours cannot do business with a government that
is masked ; we must know with whom we are dealing.
The high-minded and progressive statesmen who com-
posed the Japanese Delegation to the Washington
Conference were unquestionably sincere when they
disavowed for their country any militaristic ambi-
tions. But it remains to be seen whether the mili-
tarists will support them. For we can no more trust
the militarists of Tokio than we could trust the mili-
tarists of Potsdam. We do not speak the same lan-
guage. Our standards of honor are not the same. If
Japan sincerely desires the friendship of the United
States, then she must give valid assurances that the
promises of her government will henceforward be
binding on her military, as well as her civil agents.

JAPAN 51

Let me resume, now, my explanation of the struc-
ture and mechanism of the Japanese Government.
The Diet, like the American Congress, consists of
two branches — the House of Peers and the House
of Representatives. The House of Peers, which, ac-
cording to the late Marquis I to, is intended to "repre-
sent the higher grades of society," is composed of the
members of the imperial family, the nobility, and one
hundred and twenty-four imperial nominees, the lat-
ter including forty-five representatives of the largest
taxpayers. These last, who are mostly rich merchants
and wealthy landowners, are elected for seven years,
one from each prefecture, by the fifteen male inhabit-
ants thereof who pay the greatest amount of taxes.
The balance of the imperial nominees are for the most
part government officials appointed by the emperor
for life upon the recommendation of the cabinet. As
might be expected, they are strongly bureaucratic in
their sympathies. Notwithstanding the fact that the
moneyed element of the empire is well represented,
the House of Peers is not a plutocratic body. Neither
is it a stronghold of the landed interests, like the
British House of Lords. Essentially aristocratic, it
represents the interests of the clans, the nobles, the
bureaucrats, and the military classes.

The members of the House of Representatives,
which is the lower branch of the Diet, are elected by
the people. By the provisions of the election law, as
revised in March, 1919, every male Japanese who is

52 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

not less than twenty-five years of age and who pays
a direct annual tax of not less than three yen ($1.50)
— instead of fifteen yen ($7.50), as formerly — can
vote for the members of the lower house, who are
known as deputies. This law increased the number
of possible voters from about half a million to nearly
three million ; that is, about one out of every nineteen
Japanese now possesses voting privileges, instead of
one in every eighty-seven, as was the case under the
old statute. The astonishing increase in the number
of qualified voters effected by a reduction of six dol-
lars in the tax franchise provides a striking illustra-
tion of the dire poverty of the Japanese masses. Even
more astonishing, from a Western viewpoint, is the
utter indifference to the franchise displayed by both
the voting and the non-voting population. The truth
of the matter is that the great mass of the people are
too heavily burdened with taxation, too busily en-
gaged in the struggle for the bare necessities of life,
to concern themselves with politics. This explains
why there is almost no public opinion, as we under-
stand the term, in Japan. Though, under the pro-
visions of the constitution, the Japanese taxpayer has
a voice in the government of the country, he is seldom
able to raise it above a whisper.

Again, those of the masses who do take some in-
terest in politics are, generally speaking, quite sat-
isfied with the present situation. Looking back, they
compare the Japan of feudal days with the present

JAPAN 58

powerful empire, and, marking the progress that has
been made, they are quite content to let it continue.
As a result of this indifference on the part of the
masses, there is no check on the ruling classes, which,
believing with von Rochow in "the limited intel-
ligence of subjects," find no difficulty in keeping the
reins of power in their own hands. It must be ad-
mitted, however, that in the main they have ruled in
the national interest. Everything considered, the
present organization of the state is a great advance
from the feudalism which- it supplanted, and it gives
Japan a remarkably efficient and flexible administra-
tion. But, without taking an unpardonable liberty
with the truth, present-day Japan cannot be called
democratic. It is a government for rather than by
or of the people.

VI

I have now sketched in outline the double-barreled
administration which rules Japan, where two distinct
governments — one constitutional and aboveboard, the
other unconstitutional and unseen — exist and func-
tion side by side. I have also made it reasonably
clear, I hope, that the constitutional government,
were it free from outside influences, would be demo-
cratic in its tendencies and pacific in its policies,
whereas the invisible government is autocratic, mili-
taristic, aggressive, and reactionary. Broadly speak-

54 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

ing, one stands for the ballot, the other for the bullet.

It might be supposed that the former, having the
constitution behind it, would be in the strongest posi-
tion. But such is not the case. For the unseen gov-
ernment has behind it the Elder Statesmen, who,
through their influence with the emperor, are able to
override the constitution. Furthermore, as its moving
spirits include the highest officers of the army and
the navy, it has complete control of the armed forces
of the empire ; it has the allegiance of the great cap-
tains of industry and finance; and it represents the
clans. The position of the unseen government is still
further buttressed by the attitude of the proletariate,
in whose eyes it stands for military glory and natural
expansion — a bulwark against foreign aggression.

This invisible government is not a modern develop-
ment ; it goes back into Japanese history for centuries.
It dates from the days of the shogunate, when the
emperor was the titular ruler and the shogun the
actual ruler of Japan. The power of the shogun
was made possible by the support of the great military
clans, which were the forerunners of the military party
of to-day. When it is remembered that the
Elder Statesmen, all the officers of the army and
navy, and most of the higher officials of the govern-
ment are members of these clans, it is not difficult to
understand the ascendancy of the militarists in Japa-
nese politics. For example, nearly all the members of
the military clique belong to the Chosu clan, while

JAPAN 55

the navy clique is recruited from the Satsuma clan.
Thus it comes about that the policy of the govern-
ment in fundamental matters is dictated and con-
trolled by men who represent the warrior clans,
abetted by a few men who, though not themselves
clansmen, are in sympathy with the policies for which
they stand.

Though close observers have detected of late a
noticeable change in the attitude of the younger gen-
eration of Japanese toward the emperor, who is no
longer venerated as he was by past generations ; and
though, with the spread of education and the conse-
quent growth of democratic ideas, the anti-militarist
party is steadily — though slowly — gaining ground, to
talk glibly, as certain American visitors to Japan have
done, of Japanese militarism being on its last legs
is to betray profound ignorance of actual conditions.
Were the system of unseen government merely transi-
tory, it might easily yield before the pressure of edu-
cation and enlightened public opinion. But it is not
transitory. Its tentacles sink deep into the traditions
of the nation. It would be strange, indeed, if the mili-
tarists were not dominant in Japan, for the whole
history of the country is punctuated by wars, feuds,
and rebellions; 1 it climbed to its present position as
one of the great powers on the guns of its battleships

1 It should be noted, however, that for two hundred and fifty yean,
under the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan had no wars, civil or foreign,
Perhaps no other nation of virile character can boast a period of such
length entirely free from strife. £. A. P.

56 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

and the bayonets of its soldiers; it has always been
ruled by military men. Though in the last fifty years
the Japanese have reared an imposing governmental
structure, apparently built on constitutional lines, you
will find upon examination that it is founded on the
bed-rock of stern and uncompromising militarism. 1
In order that you may have a clear comprehension
of how this came about, let us take a hasty survey
of the events leading up to the Restoration of 1868.
Until that time, you will understand, the politico-so-
cial conditions prevailing in Japan approximated
those which characterized the Europe of the Middle
Ages. The emperor was a spiritual rather than a tem-
poral ruler, a sort of high priest, an object of awe and
veneration, dwelling in his great moated castle in
Kioto in magnificent seclusion. In certain respects
his position might be likened to that now occupied
by the Pope at Rome. So far as the practical work
of government was concerned, he was only an abstrac-
tion. The real power was in the hands of a military
dictator, known as the shogun. This title originated
in 1192, when the Emperor Takahira made one of
his generals, Yorimoto, a Sei-i-taiskogun (literally,
"barbarian-subjugating generalissimo"), or comman-
der-in-chief, and this office became stereotyped in the
persons of successive great military leaders until, in
1603, Iyeyasu Tokugawa became shogun and estab-

*A high Japanese official to whom I submitted the proofs of this
chapter writes, "Instead, we think it was Western militarism that made
us militaristic" £. A. P.

JAPAN 57

lished the dynasty which bore his name. For more
than two centuries and a half the shogunate remained
in the Tokugawa family, the shoguns, though jn
theory subordinate to the emperor, exercising the de
facto sovereignty in Japan.

Ruling under and with the permission of the sho-
gun, who held them in subjection with an iron hand,
were the dcimyos, the chieftains of the various clans.
In the course of centimes these great feudal chief-
tains had become as powerful as the Norman barons
who crossed with William the Conqueror into Eng-
land. They lived in fortress-like castles in medieval
arrogance and splendor; they maintained miniature
armies; they made and executed their own laws;
they exercised the rights of high justice, the middle,
and the low; they grew rich from the labors of an op-
pressed and exploited peasantry; in their own terri-
tories their will was supreme. Each of these feudal
lords collected the revenues of his fief and used them
as he saw fit, subject to the sole condition that he
maintain a body of troops proportionate to his hold-
ings and income. The daimyos recruited these mili-
tary contingents from the samurai, or fighting men,
of their respective clans. These retainers occupied a
position in the social scale somewhat below that of
the knights of the Middle Ages but considerably above
that of the men-at-arms. Armed, armored, and
highly trained for war, each of them was entitled to
wear two swords as a symbol of his station, very

58 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

much as the European knights were distinguished by
their golden spurs. Enjoying innumerable preroga-
tives, they formed a class by themselves, shaping their
conduct in strict accordance with the rules laid down
in the celebrated code of Bushida— the Ways of the
Fighting Man. But for the common people there was
no Bushido. They had no rights, save the right to
work. They were looked upon merely as machines
for grinding out wealth for the support of the daimyos
and the pay of the samurai.

Japan has made such amazing progress along mod-
ern lines in the last fifty years that it is difficult for
us to realize that these medieval conditions persisted
until well past the middle of the last century. Gen-
eral William Verbeck, the son of that Dr. Guido
Verbeck who was the most celebrated of the early
American missionaries sent to Japan, has told me
that one of the clearest recollections of his boyhood
is of a force of samurai, clad in full armor, encamp-
ing on his father's grounds. At about the time that
the revolver and the repeating rifle were making their
appearance in the West, the arms and armor of the
Middle Ages were still in use by the fighting men of
Nippon.

When the nineteenth century reached the halfway
mark, therefore, the actual government of the coun-
try was still in the hands of a Tokugawa shogun.
Satsuma and Chosu were the two most powerful
clans. But the arrival in 1853 of Commodore Perry's

JAPAN 59

squadron with the demand that Japan open her gates
to foreign commerce; followed in 1861 by the bom-
bardment of the Satsuma capital, Kagoshima, by
British men-o'war ; and by the destruction in 1864 of
the Chosu ships and fortifications at Shimonoseki by
a fleet of British, French, Dutch, and American war-
ships, brought the great feudal chieftains to an abrupt
realization of the nation's weakness and of the sho-
gunate's inability to successfully resist foreign aggres-
sion. This unwelcome discovery was accompanied
by a recognition of the fact that Japan's only hope of
preserving her independence lay in the immediate
abolition of the shogunate and the reorganization of
the government under the emperor along modern
lines. The hopelessness of the situation, if the dual
form of government was persisted in, was made clear
in a memorial addressed to Yoshinobu, the last of
the shoguns, who, on October 14, 1867, gave con-
vincing proof of his patriotism by placing his resigna-
tion in the hands of his sovereign, the fifteen-year-old
Mutsuhito. The young emperor was brought from
Kioto, the old capital, to Tokio, the new capital, where
the daimyos laid their privileges and possessions at
his feet. This act of self-renunciation has been de-
servedly applauded by the historians, yet, as a matter
of fact, it was a sacrifice of form rather than of sub-
stance. For the youthful sovereign, thus suddenly
restored to power, must have ministers, so, in the very
nature of things, the higher offices of the new govern-

60 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

ment were allotted to the former daimyos — now be-
come, under the new order of things, princes, mar-
quises, counts, and barons — while the less important
posts went to their samurai retainers. It could hardly
have been otherwise, for at that period the daimyos
and samurai — that is, the nobles and the fighting
men — were the only classes possessed of the necessary
education and training. Thus the leaders of the
great clans stepped almost automatically into posi-
tions of leadership and power in the reorganized state,
while their retainers, now become subordinate officials
in the new government, continued to give allegiance
to their former chieftains and to obey their commands,
just as they did in the old feudal days. But, though
the ex-daimyos and the former samurai laid aside
their armor with the dawning of the new era, though
they exchanged the pike for the pen, they remained
at heart military men. For a leopard cannot change
its spots. Thus was born the military autocracy which
rules Japan to-day, and the no less military bureau-
cracy which supports it.

With such training and traditions, it was not sur-
prising that the Japanese of the ruling classes early
became convinced that the development of a powerful
nation depended upon the development and main-
tenance of a powerful army and navy. It would
have been more surprising had they thought otherwise.
Now the militarists realized that they would have no
difficulty in carrying out their policies as long as they

JAPAN 61

could keep the reins of power in their hands, but
they also realized that, should the people ever get
control of the government, their schemes for building
up a great military machine were certain to meet with
serious opposition. For the people could be counted
on to grudge the vast sums which the militarists
deemed necessary for an adequate system of national
defense. Let it be clear, however, that in working
for the upbuilding of a huge military machine, the
militarists were working for what they firmly believed
to be the highest interests of the nation. For, what-
ever else may be said of them, it must be admitted that
they are genuinely patriotic men, even if their ideas
of what constitutes patriotism are not the same as
ours. They are perfectly sincere in their conviction
that Japan's safety from foreign aggression requires
the maintenance of military and naval establishments
second to none. Compared with this question, all
other questions, to their way of thinking, are of
negligible importance. In order to make certain,
therefore, that, in the event of the people gaining
control of the government, the nation should always
have adequate means of defense, they devised a
scheme which has proved as effective as it is ingenious.
At the direction of the Elder Statesmen (whose
doyen, Prince Yamagata, was regarded as the head of
the military party) the emperor issued a decree pro-
viding that laws relating to certain phases of the na-
tional defense need not be submitted to the Diet, but

62 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

could become operative upon receiving the approval
of the crown. It was likewise provided that regard-
ing such matters the members of the Diet did not even
have the right to ask questions. This freed the min-
ister of war and the minister of marine from the neces-
sity of consulting the premier on military and naval
matters. Instead, they can carry such matters
straight to the emperor, who, guided by the Elder
Statesmen, is certain to do as the militarists advise.
In other words, the militarists in some degree enjoy
a law-making power of their own. Not only that,
but they are able to carry out their plans in absolute
secrecy, for under such a system not even the premier
himself knows what is going on within the inner circle.
The militarists guard their secrets from those mem-
bers of their own government who are not in sympathy
with them as zealously as they guard them from the
agents of foreign nations. So fearful are they, in-
deed, lest their plans should become known to the
constitutional government that, when the military
leaders are received in audience by the emperor, the
precaution is taken of substituting a military aide-de-
camp for the civilian court chamberlain who is cus-
tomarily in attendance on the sovereign. Thus the
premier, the cabinet, the Diet, and the people are
kept in profound ignorance of many important de-
cisions. For example, it is asserted that the Chinese
Government has frequently made representations to
the foreign office in Tokio relative to the actions of

JAPAN 68

Japanese officials in China, only to find that the
foreign office was totally ignorant of the whole mat-
ter.

"The result," as Professor Yoshino, one of the fore-
most political students and publicists in Japan, has
said, "is that the cabinet and people of Japan are
held responsible for things done in China, Korea, and
other places of which the government and the people
have not the slightest knowledge. Because of this
dual government, Japan has been greatly misunder-
stood by America and other foreign nations, as the
military, being the most powerful, is the Japan known
to the outside world."

Let me see, now, if I can give you a concrete illus-
tration of how this system of dual government works
in practice. Let us suppose that the American Gov-
ernment favors the withdrawal of Japanese troops
from Siberia, leaving the Russians to work out their
own salvation. A note to this effect is despatched by
the secretary of state to the American Ambassador at
Tokio, who in turn transmits it to the premier, as the
responsible head of the Japanese Government. The
premier calls a meeting of his cabinet and submits the
note for consideration. If the cabinet agrees to the
American suggestion the premier directs the minister
of war to issue the necessary orders to the chief of
the general staff for the withdrawal of the troops in
Siberia, at the same time instructing the Japanese
Ambassador in Washington to inform the secretary of

64 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

state that the suggestion of the American Government
has been approved and that the troops will be with-
drawn forthwith. Had Japan a normal system of
government, like that of England or France or Italy,
that would end the matter. But Japan has not a
normal system of government. For the invisible gov-
ernment now steps in. The minister of war, who, as
I have already explained, is always a general, loses
no time in informing the Elder Statesmen and the
chief of the general staff of the cabinet's action.
They disapprove of what the cabinet has done. Being
militarists, they believe that the best interests of Japan
will be served by strengthening, rather than relaxing,
her grip on Siberia. So the emperor, acting on the
advice of the Elder Statesmen, summons the minister
of war and directs him to despatch an additional di-
vision of troops to Siberia forthwith. The minister
of war so directs the chief of the general staff, who
promptly issues the necessary orders, and the deed is
done. All this is done, mind you, without consulting
the premier and without his knowledge. The first
intimation that he has that his policy has been reversed
by the militarists, and his promise to the American
Government broken, is when he reads the news de-
spatches from Washington announcing that the Japa-
nese Government has gone back on its word and that,
instead of withdrawing its garrisons in Siberia, as it
had solemnly agreed to do, it is secretly pouring more
troops into that region. It is obvious that the con-

JAPAN 65

stitutional government of Japan cannot justly be
blamed for this sort of thing. The men who make the
promises are not those who break them. It is not Dr.
Jekyll who is insincere ; it is Mr. Hyde.

To again quote Professor Yoshino:

"Of course this scheme of a double government is
not constitutional. It ought to be easily broken up.
As a matter of fact, in the government itself, cer-
tainly in the present cabinet and among the people,
the opposition to this scheme is very strong and very
pronounced. But it is very difficult to be undertaken.
The stronger the opposition among the people be-
comes, the stronger the opposition of the militarists.
Their whole attitude is that whatever is best for Japan
is the thing that is to be done, no matter who or what
is sacrificed. Their aim is to make Japan powerful
and to insure her influence as a nation. If that means
that China or Korea is to be sacrificed, it is unavoid-
able."

vn

Though the Japanese are gradually becoming
more democratic in their tendencies; though the
number of young men, mostly students, who realize
where the militarists are leading the nation, is steadily
increasing; let us not delude ourselves into thinking
that the disappearance of militarism is a probability
of the near future. That it will eventually dis-

66 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

appear is as certain as that dawn follows the dark.
But it may take a generation or even longer. At
present the militarists are too strongly intrenched for
a public opinion as feeble as that of Japan to dis-
turb, much less dislodge them. Certainly there seems
to me little justification for the prediction recently
made by Dr. Jacob Gould Schurman, American Min-
ister to China, that Japan will be a democracy in
twenty years. That the militarists will remain in the
ascendant during the lifetime of the Elder States-
men there can be but little doubt. Not until the grip
of those aged dictators has been relaxed by death is
the power of the militarists likely to wane. Nor is
there any certainty that it will wane then; for in re-
cent years their power has been immensely strength-
ened by a force far mightier and more sinister than
that of the Genro. I refer to the force of organized
capital, of big business. As Mr. Nathaniel Peffer,
one of the shrewdest and best-informed students of
Far Eastern politics has pointed out, it is big business
which has reinforced and is keeping in power the un-
seen government — the military party.

Only recently has modern industrial Japan awak-
ened to a realization of its own strength. But it is now
fully alive to the almost unlimited power, the endless
possibilities, to be realized by the great business inter-
ests of the country joining hands with the militarists
and working with them for a common purpose. One
who could trace through the political structure of the

JAPAN 67

empire the ramifications of the great industrial and
trading companies would be in a position to analyze
Japanese politics, domestic and foreign. Those ac-
tions of the Japanese Government which are usually
attributed by foreigners to the ambitions of the mili-
tarists are in reality quite as frequently due to the
predacity of the capitalists. Here you have the key
to the annexation of Korea, to Japanese aggression in
Manchuria and Siberia, to the unreasonable demands
made on China, to the opposition to the restoration of
Shantung. All of those regions are immensely rich
in natural resources, they offer unlimited opportuni-
ties for profitable exploitation. And it is Japanese
big business which proposes to do the exploiting. So,
in order that it may obtain control of the territories
which it proposes to exploit, it has joined forces with
the land-hungry militarists. It is the most sinister
combination of high politics and big business that the
world has ever seen.

Consider for a moment what similar but far less
powerful combinations have achieved in other parts
of the world. It was the influence of the Rhodes-Beit-
Barnato interests, remember, that was chiefly instru-
mental in inducing England to embark on her con-
quest of the Transvaal, thereby bringing under the
unchallenged control of British capitalists the dia-
mond mines of Kimberley and the gold-diggings of
the Rand. It was the interests of the great West-
phalian firm of Mannesmann Brothers in the mines

68 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

of Morocco which led to Germany's naval demonstra-
tion off Agadir. It was the greed of Muscovite cap-
italists for further concessions in Manchuria and
Korea which precipitated the war between Russia and
Japan. It was the avarice of French capitalists, far
more than the persecutions of French missionaries,
which led to the tricolor being raised over Indo-China.
It was American sugar interests which brought about
the annexation of Hawaii and American oil interests
which have helped to shape our policy toward Mexico.
And in the ambition of Japanese big business to con-
trol and exploit the mines, forests, grain-fields, rail-
ways, and markets of Eastern Asia is found the ex-
planation of Japan's policy of expansion by military
force. The expansion may be commercial or terri-
torial, and the force may be used or merely threat-
ened, but the policy, and the influences which shape
the policy, are the same.

Dominating Japanese business and finance are a
few great corporations — Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Suzuki,
Okura, Sumimoto, Kuhara, Takata, Furukawa. So
much larger than the others that they are in a class by
themselves are the Mitsui and Mitsubishi companies,
owned respectively by the Mitsui and Iwasaki families.
Indeed, it is a common saying in Japan that no one
knows where Mitsui ends and the government begins.
Their tentacles sink deep into every phase of national
life— commercial, industrial, financial, political. They
own banks, railways, steamship lines, mills, factories,

JAPAN 69

dockyards, mines, forests, fisheries, plantations, insur-
ance companies, trading corporations. They and the
leaders of the unseen government — the military party
— are as closely bound together by political, financial,
and family ties as were the Chicago packers before the
dissolution of their monopoly. They are as inter-
twined by marriage, mutual interests, and interlock-
ing directorates as President Wilson boasted that the
Treaty of Versailles was intertwined with the Cove-
nant of the League of Nations.

Each of these great companies, according to Mr.
Peffer, has its political, financial, or family alliance
with the leaders of the unseen government. For ex-
ample, the late Marquis Okuma, one of the Elder
Statesmen, was related by marriage to the Iwasakis,
who, as I have said, own the great house of Mutsu-
bishi. Another of the Elder Statesmen, Marquis
Matsukata, is adviser to one of these industrial dy-
nasties, while his third son, Kojiro Matsukata, is the
head of the great Kawasaki shipbuilding plant at
Kobe, where more than one dreadnought has been
built for the government. The late Marquis Inoue,
who held in turn the portfolios of agriculture and
commerce, home affairs, finance, and foreign affairs,
was closely connected with the house of Mitsui. The
late Field-Marshal Terauchi, at one time Prime Min-
ister of Japan and one of the^foremost leaders of the
military party, was equally close to Okura, a relation-
ship which explains that house's success in obtaining

70 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

highly profitable army contracts as well as important
concessions in the Japanese spheres of influence on the
mainland. Baron Shibusawa, whom they call "the
Rockefeller of Japan/' has long been on the most in-
timate terms with Prince Tokugawa, the President of
the House of Peers, having gone to Europe as the
companion of the prince and his brother as long ago
as 1868. And so with the highest military men of the
empire and the leading statesmen. Each has his rela-
tionship to some great financial house, to some captain
of industry. Big business uses these affiliations with
the militarists to obtain for their schemes the support
and cooperation of the unseen government. And by
the same token the unseen government is enormously
strengthened by the support of big business. It is like
a crossruff at bridge.

vm

"Japan's future lies oversea." In those four
words is found the policy of the military-finan-
cial combination which rules the empire. The an-
nexation of Formosa and Korea and Sakhalin, the
occupation of Manchuria and Siberia and Shantung,
are not, as the world supposes, examples of hap-
hazard land-grabbing. They are phases of a vast
and carefully-laid scheme which has as its ultimate
object the control of all Eastern Asia. Ostensibly to
solve the problems with which she has been confronted

JAPAN 71

by her amazing increase in population and produc-
tion, but in reality to gratify the greed of big business
and the restless ambitions of the military party, Japan
has embarked on a campaign of world-expansion and
exploitation. Convinced that she requires a colonial
empire in her business, she has set out to build one up
as she would build a dry-dock or a bridge. The fact
that she had nothing, or next to nothing, to start with
did not discourage her at all. Having once made up
her mind that the realization of her political, economic,
and territorial ambitions necessitated the acquirement
of overseas dominions, she has permitted nothing to
stand in the way of her getting them. Land and
trade-hunger and the lust for power have whipped
her on. So, wherever a pretext can be provided for
raising a flag-staff, whether on an ice-floe in the Arctic
or on an atoll in the Pacific, there the Rising Sun
flag'shall flutter ; wherever trade is to be found, there
Yokohama cargo-boats shall drop their anchors, there
Osaka engines shall thunder over Kobe rails, there
Kioto silks and Nagoya cottons shall be sold by mer-
chants speaking the language of Dai Nippon. It is a
scheme astounding in its very vastness, as methodi-
cally planned and as systematically executed as an
American presidential campaign ; and already, thanks
to Japanese audacity, aggressiveness, and persever-
ance, backed by Japanese banks, battleships, and bay-
onets, it is much nearer realization than the world
dreams.

72 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

In China, Siberia, and the Philippines, in Cali-
fornia, Canada, and Mexico, in the East Indies, Aus-
tralia, and New Zealand, on three continents and on
all the islands of the Eastern seas, Japanese mer-
chants and money are working twenty-four hours a
day to build up that overseas empire of which the
financiers and the militarists dream. The activities of
these outposts of trade are as varied as trade itself.
Their voices are heard in every Eastern market-place ;
their footsteps resound in every avenue of Oriental
endeavor. Their mines, in Siberia and Manchuria and
China rival the cave of Al-ed-Din. The railways that
converge on Peking from the north and east, the great
trunk-line across Manchuria, and the eastern section
of the trans-Siberian system are already in their
hands. They work tea plantations in China, coffee
plantations in Java, rubber plantations in Malaya,
cocoanut plantations in Borneo, hemp plantations in
the Philippines, spice plantations in the Celebes, sugar
plantations in Hawaii, prune orchards in California,
apple orchards in Oregon, dairy-farms in British Co-
lumbia, coal-mines in Manchuria, gold-mines in
Korea, forests in Siberia, fisheries in Kamchatka.
Their argosies, flying the house-flags of the Toyo
Kisen Kaisha, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, the Osaka
Shosen Kaisha, and a score of other lines, bear Japa-
nese goods to Japanese traders on every seaboard of
the world, while Japanese warships are constantly
aprowl up and down the Eastern seas, ready to pro^

JAPAN 78

tect the interests thus created by the menace of their
guns.

In regions where Japanese banks have been estab-
lished and Japanese traders have settled, it is seldom
difficult for Japan to find an excuse for aggression.
It may be that a Japanese settler is mistreated or a
Japanese consul insulted, or that a Japanese bank has
difficulty in collecting its loans. So the slim cables
flash the complaint to Tokyo ; there are secret consul-
tations between the leaders of the military party and
the chieftains of big business ; a spokesman of the un-
seen government rises in the Diet to announce that in
Siberia or China Japanese interests have been imper-
illed or Japanese dignity affronted; the newspapers
controlled by big business inflame the national resent-
ment ; the aged trio behind the throne, speaking in the
name of the emperor, issue the necessary orders to the
ministers of war and marine and to the chief of the
general staff ; and before the offending country awak-
ens to a realization of what is happening, Japanese
transports are at anchor in her harbors and Japanese
troops are disembarking on her shores. Before they
are withdrawn, — if they are withdrawn, — Japan
usually succeeds in extorting a concession to build a
railway, or to work a coal-mine, or to contract a loan,
or a ninety-nine year lease of a harbor which can be
converted into a naval base, or the cession of a more
or less valuable strip of territory — and so the work
of building up an overseas empire goes steadily on.

74 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

This territorial expansion (or rather, the spirit of
aggression which has inspired it and the readiness to
advance it by the employment of military force) has
naturally aroused foreign suspicion of Japan's inten-
tions. In less than a quarter of a century we have
seen the area of the empire increased by nearly eighty
per cent. — and every foot of this new territory was
won by the sword. We have seen Formosa and the
Pescadores filched, as spoils of war, from a helpless
China. We have witnessed the annexation of Korea
against the wishes of its people. We have seen Man-
churia become Japanese in fact, if not in name. We
have watched first Southern and then Northern Sak-
halin brought under the rule of Tokyo. We have seen
Japan, not content with the seizure of the German
possessions on the Shantung Peninsula, push her gar-
risons two hundred and fifty miles into the interior
of China. We have noted Japan's reluctance to per-
mit the neutralization of Yap. We have even heard
of Japanese agents at work in Outer Mongolia, at the
court of the Living Buddha. To-day Japan has a
chain of forts, garrisons, naval bases and coaling sta-
tions stretching from the mid-Pacific to mid-Asia,
from the ice of the Arctic to the fierce heat of the
Line. Her guns watch the whole eastern seaboard
of the continent. The strategic railways converg-
ing on Peking, the Manchurian trunk-line, and the
eastern section of the trans-Siberian system are in her
hands. Sakhalin and Hokkaido on the north guard

JAPAN 75

the approaches to Kamchatka and the rich basin of the
Amur. Port Arthur, Chemulpo, and Tsing-tau are
Japanese watchdogs at the gateways to the vast un-
developed wealth of Northern China. Kyushu and
Formosa look out on the populous and fertile littoral
which stretches from Shanghai to Canton. Her naval
bases in the Pescadores are within easy striking dis-
tance of the Philippines. And, a thousand miles out
in the Pacific, the Marshall, the Caroline, and the
Bonin groups form her eastern skirmish line. Is it a
matter for surprise, then, that our suspicions and ap-
prehensions have been aroused by this steady and
implacable Japanese advance? The Japanese resent
these suspicions and apprehensions as unjustified.
My answer to that is: Let them look at the map.

Japan finds herself to-day in a most difficult and
perplexing situation. With her population increasing
at the rate of nearly three quarters of a million an-
nually, and with less than fifteen per cent, of her soil
capable of cultivation, her government finds itself
faced by three grave and pressing problems : the first,
that of finding sources from which to obtain the raw
materials with which to keep her factory-wheels turn-
ing; the second, that of finding markets for her manu-
factured products ; the third, that of finding room for

76 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

the expansion of her surplus population. Barred by
legislation from North America and Australia, she
has found on the mainland of Asia — in China proper,
in Manchuria, and to a lesser degree in Mongolia and
Siberia — suitable fields for colonial, industrial, and
commercial expansion. But the energetic, aggressive,
and at times unscrupulous methods which she has pur-
sued in these regions have brought her into sharp con-
flict with American interests, with American moral
sentiment, and particularly with the American policy
of the Open Door. American opinion appears to be
fairly evenly divided as to the attitude which should
be adopted by the United States in regard to Japan's
claims of preponderant rights and "special interests' 9
on the Asian mainland, one section (which is strongly
pro-Chinese) insisting that she must be forced to
withdraw unconditionally from Chinese and Russian
territory ; the other holding that, so long as she makes
no attempt to shut us out from the markets of those
regions which she considers within her sphere of in-
fluence, it would be impractical and impolitic for the
United States to interfere with her activities on the
mainland. These diametrically opposed views are
admirably summed up in the following extracts, the
first being taken from an editorial in a well-known
periodical i 1

As long ago as the time of the Paris Conference we urged
the necessity of giving the Japanese a reasonable outlet in

1 Town cmd Coumtry, January 1, 1999.

JAPAN 77

Northern China and Eastern Siberia. We held that it was
manifestly impossible to bar the Japanese from the western
coast of the twin American continents and all of Australia
and New Zealand and the larger islands of the Pacific which
are controlled by the English-speaking peoples, and also
to prevent her from overflowing onto the mainland of Asia.
At least, it was impossible to do this without eventually
going to war. We also disagreed entirely with the outcry
against the assigning at Paris of the German leases in
Shantung to Japan. Japan had exactly the same right
to those German assets, which she seized by process of war,
as we had to the German ships which we seized in the North
River. When, therefore, the Washington Conference takes
a course which gives Japan a fairly clean bil of health in
the Far East, tacitly allows her a wide field for expansion
there, and, in addition, does away with the Anglo-Japanese
Alliance, which, in our view, was a real stumbling block in
the way of peace, we need hardly say that our sympathy is
all with the action of the Conference. . . . It is entirely
reasonable, to our view, that we should give the Japanese a
fairly free hand in Northern China and Siberia ; at least, it
is the business of China, with her four hundred million popu-
lation, to stop Japan, and not our business.

This is manifestly the expression of a narrow and
selfish point of view, being in striking contrast to
the following extract from a letter written me, shortly
before the opening of the Washington Conference, by
a former American diplomatist, a gentleman of dis-
tinguished attainments, and, by reason of his long
residence in Japan, a recognized authority on Fas
Eastern affairs:

For us to acknowledge unreservedly Japan's preponderant
rights on the Asian mainland and to recognize that Eastern
Asia is her political sphere of influence would mean not only
a general recognition by us of the validity of spheres of in-

78 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

fluence which would be fatal to our foreign policy, but might
involve us in a practical approval of what would amount to
a partition of China. Such an approval would mean a re-
versal of our whole attitude toward China, which would be
a tragedy to the people of China and would furthermore be
a serious political blunder, as we would thus acquiesce in the
practical elimination of all our trade with the Orient. Our
choice has always seemed to me reasonably simple. We
must either maintain our disapproval of spheres of influ-
ence or we must surrender our ideals of an open market and
play the game with the other Powers, demanding our par-
ticular spheres as they demand theirs. This latter position
I am confident our people would never support. I realize
that Japanese propaganda has endeavored to find an an-
alogy between the Monroe Doctrine and their claim of a
paramount interest on the mainland of Asia, but in my
judgment there is no such analogy. There is one final rea-
son why I think that this method of averting a conflict
between the United States and Japan is not only impractical
and impolitic, but also what I venture to term immoral. In
effect, it would be appropriating the rights and property of
China and Russia and then using them to complete a bargain
in the interest of our own exclusion policy! What right
have we to bargain away China's sovereignty in Manchuria
in order to solve our own controversy with Japan? It strikes
me as a form of international embezzlement. And then,
worst of all, it simply wouldn't work. It would not leave
peace in Asia. It would create problems in the future in
which we would be viewed by the Russian and Chinese peoples
as co-conspirators in Japan's aggression. ... Of course,
you realize that such a solution is the one that the Japanese
ruling class most earnestly desire.

Now it seems to me that, speaking in the language
of practical politics, the only feasible solution lies
somewhere between these views. For I do not believe
that the majority of Americans are selfish enough to
endorse the first view any more than I believe that

JAPAN 79

they are altruistic enough to insist on the latter.
Moreover, we must recognize the existence of certain
conditions and be prepared to accept them, whether
we approve of them or not. For example, we might
as well realize first as last that there is not the slight-
est probability of Japan evacuating the Kwantung
peninsula — that is, the leased territories of Dalny and
Fort Arthur. She is there to stay — make no mistake
about that — at least until the expiration of the ninety-
nine-year lease which she took over from Russia.
This great stronghold at the entrance to the Gulf of
Chihli forms a vital link in Japan's scheme of national
defense, it has cost her thousands of lives and millions
of yen, and there is no more likelihood of her restoring
it to China than there is of Great Britain restoring
Gibraltar to Spain.

As regards Shantung, the situation is entirely dif-
ferent. The possession of Kiauchau is not vital to the
Japanese scheme of national defense nor are the Japa-
nese people particularly attached to it by sentiment.
Ever since the Peace Conference at Paris, Japan has
realized that, in remaining on the peninsula, she was
defying world opinion. Moreover, her statesmen
have proclaimed over and over again, in the most un-
equivocal of terms, that it was Japan's intention to
restore the German leasehold to China, and it is
hardly conceivable that the nation intends to break
the pledge thus given. The truth of the matter is
that the delay in the withdrawal of the Japanese has

80 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

been largely due to the obstinacy and excessive pride
shown by both parties and to petty bickering over the
form and details of the transaction. Prophecy in in-
ternational affairs is always unwise, but I think it safe
to predict that the Japanese evacuation of Shantung
will have begun before this book is published.

The greatest obstacle in the path of a friendly un-
derstanding between Japan and China is provided by
Manchuria, where Japan has extensive, varied, and
valuable interests — railways, mines, timber, and other
concessions — some of which she took over from Rus-
sia by the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth and
others which she has acquired since. She has ex-
pended millions of yen on the development of these
concessions and there have settled in Manchuria,
moreover, a very considerable number of Japanese
subjects. And finally, the borders of Manchuria are
conterminous with the borders of Korea for nearly a
thousand miles. Now, in view of the notorious weak-
ness and instability of the Peking government, which
has shown itself powerless to make its authority felt
throughout the Eighteen Provinces of the Chinese
homeland, much less in the outlying territories, it
seems to me too much to expect Japan to renounce
her enormously valuable interests in Manchuria, with-
draw the guards from her railways, and abandon her
nationals and their properties to Chang Tso-lin and
his fellow-bandits, who, once the firm hand of Japa-
nese control was removed, would have the land at

JAPAN 81

their mercy. No one who has a first-hand knowledge
of the conditions which prevail in Manchuria can
truthfully assert that the substitution of Chinese for
Japanese control in that region at this time would be
for the best interests of the inhabitants themselves.
But this should not be interpreted as meaning that I
believe in perpetuating Japan's claims to "special in-
terests' 9 in Manchuria, for I do not. Let the Chinese
give convincing proof of their ability to establish a
strong and efficient central government, let them put
an end to the civil war which is disrupting the repub-
lic, let them suppress the misrule, corruption, and
brigandage which prevail throughout the Eighteen
Provinces, and then they will have substantial
grounds for demanding that Japan's privileged posi-
tion in Manchuria shall be terminated. Manchuria
is indubitably Chinese territory, and its complete con-
trol should be restored to her as soon as she is in a
position to exercise it.

But Japan has not the same justification for her
conduct in the Eighteen Provinces that she has had
for her policy in Manchuria. Her behavior in the
Chinese homeland has been characterized by inexcus-
able selfishness, arrogance, discrimination, and greed.
If she wishes to convince the world that she is sincere
in her protestations that she has no designs on Chinese
sovereignty, no desire to shut the Open Door, then
she should lose no time in withdrawing her troops
(she has a garrison as far inland as Hankow) and

82 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

her police, in abandoning her post-offices, and in ter-
minating certain offensive agreements which she has
coerced the Chinese into accepting. In short, she
must conduct herself henceforward like a guest in a
friend's house, rather than like a burglar.

On the other hand, so long as Japan confines her-
self to strictly legitimate methods I fail to see how
exception can be taken by the Chinese, or by any one
else, to Japanese commercial expansion in China. By
commercial expansion I mean the establishment of
banks, the flotation of loans, the construction of rail-
ways, the operation of mines, and similar industrial
activities, provided always that they meet with the
approval of the Chinese Government and are con-
ducted in a fashion which in no way imperils the sov-
ereignty of China or infringes on the rights of other
nations. Japan must obtain raw materials for her
home industries, and I can see no more objection to
her obtaining them from China than I can to the
United States obtaining oil from Mexico. Japan
must find markets for her products, and I can see no
more objection to her seeking those markets in China
than I can to the United States seeking markets in
Latin- America. Japan must provide for her surplus
population, and I can see no more objection to Japa-
nese emigrants settling in China — provided they are
willing to abide by Chinese laws — than I can to Euro-
pean emigrants settling in the United States. But
Japan must abandon for good and all her old policy

JAPAN 88

of monopolization and coercion. There must be no
further alienation of Chinese territory on any pretext
whatsoever. There must be no further attempts to
intimidate the Chinese Government into granting con-
cessions, accepting Japanese "advice/' or signing ob-
noxious treaties. If Japan will give convincing proof
of her sincerity by putting an immediate end to these
abuses, then there is no reason why the two great
Oriental nations should not become friends and allies,
thereby dispelling for all time the ominous cloud that
has so long overshadowed the Farther East.

I am of the opinion that the Japanese policies in
China which have caused so much uneasiness abroad
are dictated by imperative economic necessity rather
than by a spirit of wanton aggression. If you will take
the trouble to look into the matter you will find that
Japan's territorial expansion on the Asian mainland
is not due, as her enemies would have you believe, to
greed for military glory, to an insatiable lust for
power. It is due, as I have already pointed out,
to the necessity of providing food for a popula-
tion which is already greater than the soil of
the homeland can support, and which is de-
barred by exclusion acts or racial hostility from
seeking its livelihood on the American or Australian
continents. Consider the facts. With a birth-rate of
32 per 1000, the population of Japan is increasing
at the rate of approximately 750,000 a year. Though

84 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

much of its surface is so mountainous as to be unin-
habitable, or at least unsusceptible to cultivation,
Japan already has nearly four hundred inhabitants
to the square mile, and this number is steadily rising.
Though, during the last decade, the area of land
under cultivation has been increased by five per
cent, and the production of rice by four per cent., the
number of mouths that must be fed have increased
by twelve per cent In the same period the cost of
living in Japan has increased nearly four hundred
per cent. With emigration to America and Aus-
tralia out of the question, the nation is faced, then, by
three alternatives : ( 1 ) a reduction of the birth-rate ;
(2) an increase in food production; (8) territorial
expansion into the thinly populated regions of East-
ern Asia. As a reduction of the birth-rate is not
to be expected, and as food production in Japan itself
has already reached the maximum, Japanese states-
men have been compelled by sheer economic necessity
to adopt the third alternative — expansion on the
Asian mainland. There you have in tabloid form the
true expansion of Japan's political and military activ-
ities in Shantung, Manchuria, Mongolia, and Siberia
and her claims to "special interests" in all those
regions. In short, Japan has reached the point where
she must overflow or perish, just as the congested
countries of Europe overflowed into the Americas and
Africa. But in her case there is no New World, no
Dark Continent, in which her surplus millions can

JAPAN 85

find homes and livelihoods. The waste lands were
long ago parceled out among the Western nations.
Japan came into the world a century too late. De-
barred from expanding to the eastward or the south-
ward, she is expanding westward into the loosely held,
thinly peopled, undeveloped fringes of China and
Siberia. That her expansion should be at the ex-
pense of other and weaker nations is unfortunate but,
under the circumstances, unavoidable. As a Japanese
writer in "The World's Work" has put it: "The
Japanese people must either die a saintly death in
righteous starvation, or expand into the neighbor's
backyard — and Japan is not that much of a saint.' 9

We now come to the most delicate, the most
difficult, and the most dangerous of all the ques-
tions in dispute between America and Japan — that
of Japanese immigration into the United States. Now
I have no intention of embarking on a discussion of
the pros and cons of this question. But because I have
found that most Americans have only an inexact and
fragmentary knowledge of it, and because a rudi-
mentary understanding of it is essential to a clear
comprehension of the larger question, our relations
with Japan, I trust that you will bear with me while
I sketch in outline the events which led up to the

86 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

present immigration situation. I will compress them
into tabloid form.

Under the administrative interpretation of our
naturalization laws, Japanese aliens are ineligible to
American citizenship. But down to the summer of
1908 there was no restriction on Japanese immigra-
tion. Up to that time, in other words, a Japanese
could enter and settle in the United States, but he
could not become an American citizen. In that year,
however, the much-discussed "Gentlemen's Agree-
ment/' whereby Japanese laborers are excluded from
the United States, went into effect. That agreement
is not in the shape of a formal treaty or undertaking.
The term applies simply to the substance of a num-
ber of informal notes exchanged between the then
Secretary of State, Elihu Root, and Mr. K. Takahira,
at that time the Japanese Ambassador in Washing-
ton. The terms of this agreement provided that no
Japanese could enter our ports from Japan or from
Hawaii without a proper passport from his own gov-
ernment, and Japan promised to give no passports
to prospective emigrants of the coolie, or laboring
class. There has been no charge that Japan has failed
to keep both letter and spirit of this agreement with
absolute integrity. In fact, the Japanese Foreign
Office has at times leaned backward in its endeavor
to keep faith. But the labor elements in California,
unable to meet Japanese industrial competition and
jealous of Japanese success, continued their anti-

JAPAN 87

Japanese agitation, being aided by politicians seeking
the labor vote, and in 1913 laws prohibiting the pur-
chase of land by Japanese in that state were placed
on the statute books of California.

But there were certain loopholes left by this law.
These loopholes permitted of agricultural land being
leased by Japanese for three years ; of land being pur-
chased by corporations in which Japanese were inter-
ested ; and of land being purchased by American-born
children of Japanese parents. To block up these
loopholes the Oriental Exclusion League circulated a
petition to place an initiative act — known as the Alien
Land Act — on the ballot in 1920. To bolster up its
arguments in favor of this act, the League called at-
tention to the rapid increase in the Japanese birth-
rate in California. This increase in the birth-rate was
due, it was claimed, to the custom followed by many
of the poorer Japanese settlers in California of having
sent to them from Japan pictures of eligible girls. In
this manner the Japanese in America selected their
wives, to whom they were married in absentia. These
so-called "picture brides/' being thus legally married,
had the right under our laws to join their husbands in
the United States, which they did in considerable
numbers. And the more picture brides, the more chil-
dren. And the more children, the more land passing
under Japanese control; for the Japanese circum-
vented the prohibition against their holding land by
purchasing land in the name of their American-born

88 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

children, who were automatically American citizens
and of whom the parents were the legal guardians.
This method of circumventing the law created such
an uproar among the anti-Japanese elements in Cali-
fornia that in February, 1920, Japan, in order to re-
move another source of controversy, ceased to issue
passports to picture brides. But this did not satisfy
the Calif ornian agitators, who succeeded in having the
adoption of the Alien Land Act put to a popular vote.
This act — perhaps the most stringent measure ever
directed against the civil rights of residents in the
United States — provides :

1. Prohibition of land-ownership by Japanese.

2. Prohibition of leasing of agricultural lands by Japa-
nese.

3. Prohibition of land-ownership by companies or cor-
porations in which Japanese are interested.

4. Prohibition of land-ownership by Japanese children
born in the United States, by removing them from the
guardianship of their parents in such cases.

At the elections in November, 1920, this measure
was carried by a majority of the registered voters and
by a three-to-one vote of those who expressed an opin-
ion on the subject. The vote stood 668,483 in favor
and 222,086 opposed.

There you have the Japanese immigration situation
up to date.

Right here let me interject the remark that, in re-
senting the American attitude of racial superiority,
the restrictions imposed by the United States on

JAPAN 89

»

Japanese immigration, and the prohibition of land-
ownership by Japanese in California, the people of
Nippon are not consistent. They refuse to see that
the American attitude toward the Japanese is almost
identical with the Japanese attitude toward the
Chinese — but with this difference: we do not hold
the Japanese in contempt, as the Japanese hold the
Chinese. The Japanese regard the Chinese as an in-
ferior race, considering themselves immeasurably su-
perior to them intellectually in culture and in effi-
ciency. His supreme contempt for the Chinese ex-
plains why the Japanese so bitterly resents being
placed in the same category with them by our immi-
gration laws. The Japanese see nothing anomalous
in the fact that their own laws prohibiting Chinese
from settling in Japanese territory are fully as rigid
as the restrictions placed on Japanese immigration
into the United States. Indeed, they have carried
their exclusion policy to far greater lengths than we
have ours, for unskilled foreign laborers are not per-
mitted to settle in those regions on the Asian main-
land which, though they do not belong to Japan, are
under Japanese control. In other words, a Chinese
coolie cannot settle in the Chinese province of Shan-
tung, because, forsooth, Japan regards it as within
her own sphere of influence. The subjects of the em-
peror admit of no inconsistency in the fact that,
though approximately 27,000 acres are owned by
Japanese settlers in California, not a single foot

90 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

of Japanese soil can be owned by a foreigner. They
fail to recognize anything anomalous in the fact that,
though nearly 48,000 acres in California are owned by
American corporations controlled by Japanese capi-
tal, very few, if any, foreigners are represented in
corporations holding land in Japan. There are, it is
true, a few foreigners in Japan who hold land under
perpetual leases, but these holdings, insignificant in
number and extent, have come down from the days
when the Western nations exacted extraterritorial
privileges. As a people, the Japanese are not blessed
with a sense of humor. If they were, they would see
the humor of their insistence on being accorded the
same rights which they deny to another Oriental race,
the Chinese.

But the point I wish to emphasize is this: the
Japanese Government is not clamoring for the re-
moval of any of the present restrictions on the immi-
gration of its nationals into the United States. The
Japanese consider these restrictions offensive and
humiliating, — that goes without saying, — but they
concede our right to decide who shall enter our doors
and who shall stay out. Not for a moment, however,
have the Japanese been blinded by our assertions that
our exclusion of them is based purely on economic
grounds. They are far too shrewd not to recognize
that this explanation was advanced to soothe their
wounded vanity, as a sop to their pride. They know,
and we know, that the real cause of their exclusion is

JAPAN 91

racial. No one realizes more clearly than the Japanese
themselves that, in excluding them from the United
States, we have in effect stigmatized them as an in-
ferior race. I repeat, however, that they concede our
right to exclude whom we please. But what they do
not concede, what they will not agree to, is the right
of the United States, or of any state in the United
States, to discriminate against those Japanese who
are lawfully resident in this country. To attempt to
deprive those Japanese legally dwelling within our
borders of those personal and property rights which
we grant to all other aliens is so obviously unjust that
it scarcely merits discussion. The Japanese have ex-
cellent grounds for believing that such discriminatory
legislation is unconstitutional ; they know that it con-
stitutes an open defiance of equity and justice. They
feel — and their feeling is apparently shared by the
222,000 Calif ornians who voted against it — that such
legislation makes ridiculous and hypocritical our oft-
repeated boast that we stand for the square deal.

The bitterness of Japanese resentment over the
immigration question is not entirely due, however, to
wounded racial pride, but quite as much, I think, to
the rudeness and lack of tact which have characterized
the anti-Japanese agitation in California. For it
should be remembered that in no country is the code
of social courtesy or consideration for foreigners so
rigidly observed as in Japan. In dealing with the
Japanese, nothing is ever gained by insults or bully-

92 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

ing. Politeness is the shibboleth of all classes, and
the lowest coolie usually responds to it instantly. Is
it to be wondered at, then, that the Japanese are irri-
tated and resentful at the lack of courtesy and ordi-
nary good manners which we have displayed in our
handling of so peculiarly delicate a matter as the im-
migration question?

It may be that local conditions justify the wave of
anti- Japanese hysteria which is sweeping the Pacific
Coast. It may be that the people of the Western
states can offer valid reasons for their constant pin-
pricking and irritation of Japan. But I doubt it. I
am no stranger to California — I have lived there off
and on for years — nor am I ignorant of the relations
between labor and politics in that state. That is why
I refuse to become excited over the threatened "con-
quest" of California by a little group of aliens which
comprises only two per cent, of the population of the
state and which owns or leases only one and six tenths
per cent, of its cultivated lands. The last census
shows that there are 111,010 Japanese — men,
women, and children — in the United States. And no
more are coming in. Surely this is not a very serious
menace to a nation of 110 millions of people I

The Californians assert that their anti-Japanese
legislation is a matter for them to decide and does not
concern the rest of the country. Therein they are
wrong. For in the unwished-for event of war with
Japan, it would not be a war between California and

JAPAN

98

Japan, but between the United States and Japan.
Therefore, in its treatment of the Japanese, it be-
hooves California to take the rights and interests of
the rest of the country into careful consideration. So,
because we must all share in the responsibility for
California's treatment of the Japanese problem, let
us make certain beyond doubt or question that that
treatment is based on equity and justice. Under no
conditions must racial prejudice, economic jealousy,
or political expediency be permitted to serve as an
excuse for giving the Japanese anything save a square
deal.

Just and permanent solutions of the various ques-
tions at issue between the United States and Japan
have been greatly retarded by trouble-making and
dangerous elements in both countries: in Japan, by
the arrogant, avaricious, unscrupulous militarists who
shape the policies of the government ; in America by
jingoes with selfish aims to serve, irresponsible gossip-
mongers, professional alarmists, and yellow journal-
ists. For example, not a little of the American dis-
trust of Japan is directly traceable to the highly
circumstantial stories told by returning tourists,
whose opportunities for observation have usually
been limited and whose opinions are generally super-
ficial, of Japan's secret designs against the Philip-

94 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

pines. In substantiation of these stories they point
to Japan's imperative need for an outlet for her ex-
cess population, to the temptation offered by the Phil-
ippines, which form a prolongation of the Japanese
archipelago (Formosa, the southernmost island under
the Japanese flag, can be seen from the highlands of
Luzon on a clear day), and to the alleged alarming
increase in the number of Japanese settlers in the
Philippines, most of whom, so the gossips will assure
you earnestly, are military reservists disguised as
laborers. Before proceeding, let me dispose of the
latter assertion by saying that investigations con-
ducted by American intelligence officers have proved
conclusively that there are less than ten thousand
Japanese in the entire archipelago, and that, though
the men have doubtless had military training, they
are simple farmers, traders, and artisans, who are in
the Philippines for the purpose of making a living.
That the Philippines would be the first objective
of Japanese attack in the event of war between the
United States and Japan is a foregone conclusion.
That the Japanese General Staff is in possession of
accurate and detailed information as to our scheme of
defense and the strength and disposition of our forces
in the islands, goes without saying. Our own general
staff is presumably equally well informed about
Mexico. That, in the event of war, the Japanese
could seize the islands with little difficulty, and hold
them indefinitely, is conceded by most military men.

JAPAN »5

But I am convinced that, as things stand to-day,
Japan is as innocent of designs against the Philippines
as we are of designs against Mexico. (What her
attitude might be were we to withdraw from the
islands, leaving the natives to manage their own af-
fairs, is quite another question. ) It is true that Japan
objects to the fortification of the Philippines, regard-
ing it as an implied threat against herself, but I
imagine that we would object to, and probably would
prohibit, the establishment of a fortified Japanese
naval base on the coast of Mexico. Those persons
who talk so loosely of Japan's determination to seize
the Philippines at the first opportunity that offers are
doubtless unaware that she once had an opportunity
to purchase them at a bargain price — and declined it.
Viscount Kaneko told me that, some years prior to
the Spanish- American War, representatives of the
Spanish Government inquired whether Japan would
care to purchase the Philippines for the equivalent of
eight million dollars gold, and that Japan refused to
consider the proposal on the ground that the Philip-
pines were too far away for her to administer easily
and that Japanese do not thrive in tropical climates.
It has long been a popular pastime among certain
of our people to prophesy an eventual war between
the two countries. Let us look at this question from
the viewpoint of common sense. Neither the Jap-
anese Government nor the Japanese people want war
with the United States. It is possible that some of

96 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS •

the younger and more hot-headed military men might
welcome such a conflict because of the opportunities
it would afford them for winning promotion, decora-
tions, and glory. But you may be quite certain that
the older and wiser men who direct the military
policies of the empire have no desire to embark on
such an adventure. Confident as they are of Japan's'
prowess, they do not blind themselves to the fact
that such a conflict could have only one conclusion.
The lessons taught by America's achievements
in the World War have not been lost on them.
When the United States in less than eighteen months
raised an army of five million men and equipped them,
and put nearly half of them down on a battle-line
three thousand miles away, it gave the Japanese mili-
tarists much food for thought. They were as
astounded by this revelation of the republic's military
might as were the Germans. Though it is entirely
possible that the Japanese might be victorious in
the earlier stages of a conflict with the United States,
the Japanese strategists know perfectly well that, in
view of America's immensely superior man-power,
wealth, and natural resources, such a struggle would
be hopeless for Japan from the beginning. They
have not forgotten how desperate was their plight
when President Roosevelt's intervention brought the
war with Russia to a close, nor do they shut their
eyes to the certainty that, in a war with the United
States, the nations of the world, including those of

JAPAN 97

the Orient, would infallibly give their moral support
to America. Even were the militarists mad enough
to embark on such an enterprise, which they are not,
they could never obtain the support of Japan's cap-
tains of finance and industry.. These shrewd, far-
seeing business men do not forget that America is
Japan's largest customer ; that more than one third of
all the products of the empire go to the United States.
Practically all of Japan's exported tea, seventy per
cent, of her raw and manufactured silk and large
quantities of her other products are sold in American
markets. I have heard it declared, indeed, that were
the United States to double her import duties on tea
and silks it would bring Japan to the verge of ruin.
Nor do the Japanese overlook the fact that the United
States is now the greatest reservoir of capital in the
world. Japan needs money. Europe, impoverished
by the war, cannot supply it. America can. I repeat,
Japan does not want war with the United States.

And it is equally certain that the United States
does not want war with Japan. We want, and expect
to get, our fair share of the trade of the Far East,
but we have not the remotest desire for territorial ex-
pansion in those regions. We shall continue to insist
on the Open Door in China remaining open, but we
freely concede that the Japanese have as much right
to use that door as ourselves. We shall continue to
insist that our rights in the Pacific be recognized, but
this implies no hostility toward Japan. A sugge?' ion

98 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

that any considerable section of the American people
cherishes sentiments hostile to the Japanese would
be greeted with derision anywhere in the United
States, save perhaps in a few local communities on
the Pacific Coast, whose sentiments are in no wise
indicative of the attitude of the country as a whole.
I do not believe that the majority of fair-minded
Americans object to Japanese commercial expansion
on the Asian mainland — so long as that expansion
is legitimately conducted. But we do object to ex-
pansion by intrigue or force. We can sympathize
with Japan's undeniable need for more elbow-room,
but we cannot countenance the plans of the Tokio
militarists for extending Japanese dominion by the
sword. Though we conceded, through the Lan-
sing-Ishii Agreement, that Japan possesses "special
interests" on the Asian mainland, we cannot see
those interests multiplied until they block the Open
Door. 1 For sentimental, political, and economic rea-
sons we are averse to the expansion of Japan at the
expense of China and Russia, but we have no thought
of actively opposing such expansion so long as it
takes the form of peaceful penetration of thinly peo-
pled, undeveloped, and misgoverned regions, partic-
ularly as we believe that those regions will be im-
proved by scientific development and their peoples
benefited by decent government. I am myself of

*One of the first acts of Mr. Hughes, upon becoming Secretary of
State, was to make it amply clear to the Japanese Government that
the United States no longer recognizes these "special interests."

JAPAN 99

the opinion that the future policy of Japan will tend
rather in the direction of economic penetration than
of territorial expansion. Several recent events have
contributed to bring about this change in policy. To
begin with, the sudden collapse of Prussian militarism
was a staggering blow to the Japanese militarists.
It brought them to an abrupt realization of the fact
that the world was heartily sick of militarism and im-
perialism, and that their dreams of building up a Pan-
Asian empire by conquest could never be fulfilled.
They realized that America, now the greatest mili-
tary-naval-financial power on earth, would never
consent to the Japanese making themselves masters
of the Pacific or overlords of Asia. Again, they
recognized the growing strength of public opinion in
Japan itself — a public opinion which is beginning to
make itself heard and which demands peace and
friendship with the rest of the world. And lastly,
but by far the most important, came the Washington
Conference, with its f ull, frank, end friendly discus-
sions of all pending questions, its clarification of
Japan's and America's position, and the correspond-
ing enlightenment of public opinion in both countries.
From talks that I have recently had with many of
the leading men of Japan, including the premier,
several members of his cabinet, and the president of
the House of Peers, I am convinced that there is not
a single question pending between the two countries
on which an understanding cannot be reached, pro*

100 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

vided we go about it in a courteous manner and a
sympathetic frame of mind. My conversations with
the Japanese leaders showed me that they have a
much clearer understanding of our difficulties and
perplexities than I had supposed. It might be well
for us to remember that the Japanese Government is
itself in an extremely trying position, and that its
leaders are extremely apprehensive of the effect on
public opinion of any settlement of the questions at
issue which might be interpreted as an affront to
Japanese national dignity or racial pride. But of
this I can assure you: Japan is genuinely, almost
pathetically, anxious for American confidence and
good-will, and, in order to obtain them, her responsible
statesmen are prepared to make almost every con-
cession that self-respect will permit and that a fair-
minded American can demand.

PART II

KOREA

1. THE PENINSULA AND ITS PEOPLE

KOREA is the Ireland of the East. The more
I consider the comparison the better I like it,
for between the two countries, one on the eastern
edge of the Old World, the other on the western, there
is a most singular and striking analogy. Ireland is
separated from the nation which is its suzerain by
a narrow, landlocked sea. So is Korea. Ireland is
a land of surpassing beauty. So is Korea. The
Irish are an agricultural people, as are the Koreans,
the national industries of both being connected with
the tilling of the soil. The peasantry of both coun-
tries are ignorant, simple, patient, industrious, good-
natured. Both are prone to use intoxicants to excess
on occasion. Both are extremely superstitious, with
a terrified belief in the existence of spirits, goblins,
and demons. Both are desperately poor, dwelling in
wretched hovels amid filth and squalor. The Irish are
turbulent and fond of intrigue. The same character-
istics are found in the Koreans. The histories of both

101

102 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

nations are punctuated by invasions, rebellions, and
internecine wars. Both have been the victims of
cruelty, injustice, and oppression. Cromwell's inva-
sion of Ireland in 1649, with its accompanying mas-
sacres and systematic devastation, had its counterpart
in the shocking scenes which marked Hideyoshi's in-
vasion of Korea in the preceding century. The Irish
have been held in subjection by a people of alien race
and religion. The Koreans still are. Irish distrust
and detestation of England is equalled only by Ko-
rean distrust and detestation of Japan. Heretofore
the Irish have failed to give convincing proof of their
ability to maintain a just and stable government.
This is likewise true of the Koreans. Most English-
men are convinced that an independent Ireland would
prove a menace to the safety of the British Empire.
Most Japanese are equally convinced that an inde-
pendent Korea would threaten the safety 4 of the
Empire of Japan.

Korea, or, to give it its official Japanese name,
Chosen, "Land of the Morning Calm," though
scarcely larger than the state of Kansas, has a popula-
tion equal to that of Spain. Its immense importance
to Japan will be better realized when I add that it
comprises one third of the total land area of the
empire and that its seventeen millions of inhabitants
form one fourth of the empire's total population. One
of the oldest nations in the world, its early history

KOREA 108

is lost in the mists of antiquity. But this much we
know : it maintained its independence for three thou-
sand years and for nine centuries its frontiers never
changed. The ignorance, insularity and intolerance
of its peasantry, the degeneracy and corruption of
its ruling classes, and its misfortune in lying between
two powerful and predatory empires, proved its
undoing.

Korea is essentially a mountain land. Rising
abruptly from its northern boundary, like a great
buttressed wall striving to hold back the flowing Si-
berian steppes, is a sinuous range of towering peaks.
Running south from this chain is a lofty central range
which forms the backbone of the country, its lateral
spurs corrugating the entire surface of the peninsula.
Ancient lava streams and craters of long-extinct vol-
canoes are constantly met with, the appearance of
the country being strongly suggestive of the Rand,
with all its mineralogical possibilities. Like the
Transvaal, Korea is extremely rich in minerals.
There are numerous coal deposits, both anthracite
and bituminous, and the natives claim that gold is
found in every one of the three hundred and sixty-five
prefectures. This is an exaggeration, but it is near
enough to the truth to explain why for centuries
Korea has aroused the cupidity of her powerful
and avaricious neighbors. Indeed, I have been as-
sured by American mining engineers that the penin-
sula is as highly mineralized as Mexico.

104 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

Sandwiched between the rugged range which forms
the spine of the country and the eastern coast is a
narrow strip, fertile but comparatively inaccessible,
which slopes sharply to the Japan Sea. But by far
the greater part of the arable land of Korea lies
on the western side of this watershed; all the
long and navigable rivers are there or in the south;
almost all the harbors are on the Yellow Sea. Thus
it may be said that Korea has her back to Japan
and her face turned toward China, a topographical
circumstance which has had no inconsiderable effect
on the history of the country. Though the moun-
tains along the northern border are densely wooded
— the timber concessions along the Yalu, it will be
remembered, were one of the contributing causes of
the Russo-Japanese War, — those to the south are
so bare and desolate that the Japanese often refer
to the peninsula as "the land of treeless mountains."
One of the causes of this lack of timber may be found
in the history of Korea, which records that during
the terrible days of the Hideyoshi invasion the peas-
ants, fleeing to the mountains for their lives, were
forced to burn the trees to keep from freezing. As
a result of this widespread deforestation, great areas
are to-day as bare as a bald man's head or clothed only
with low, straggling, discouraged-looking vegetation.
But the Japanese Bureau of Forestry has displayed
commendable foresight and energy in systematically
reforesting the country, and every year sees more

KOREA 105

and more of the bare brown slopes covered with young
trees.

Though Korea possesses an extensive river sys-
tem, the country consequently being well watered,
the streams are, with but few exceptions, too shal-
low to permit of navigation. The largest of the
rivers, the Yalu, called by Koreans, Am Nok, "Green
Duck," from the bluish-green tinge it assumes after
the melting of the snow and ice near its mountain
birthplace, forms part of the boundary between Korea
and Manchuria. It is navigable for sixty miles above
its mouth and is much used for rafting the timber
cut on its upper reaches down to the Yellow Sea.
The cold Tumen, which rises in the Ever White Moun-
tains and empties into the Japan Sea, is likewise a
frontier river, being bordered on the south by Korea
and on the north by Siberia and Manchuria. But,
though upwards of two hundred miles in length, it
is of little benefit to the Koreans, for it is frozen
solid throughout the fierce Siberian winter, and in
the spring, when the snows melt, it becomes a raging
and almost unnavigable torrent. By far the finest
of the Korean rivers is the stately Han, sometimes
referred to, because of the auriferous deposits in its
bed, as the River of Golden Sand. It has its nativity
in the mile-high fastness of Diamond Mountain,
near the eastern coast, swings south and west across
the peninsula to Seoul, where it is nearly a thousand
feet in width, and forty-five miles farther on joins the

106 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

Yellow Sea. It is navigable for small, flat-bottomed
craft for nearly nine score miles above its mouth, and
up and down its sinuous course, through gorges as
wild and imposing as those of the Upper Yangtze,
go lumbering junks with towering sterns and huge
lug-sails and great goggle eyes painted on their
bows. The Han flows through the most fertile
portion of Korea, the rich alluvial soil, sometimes
ten feet deep, being capable of bearing two bumper
crops a year with little or no enriching. Considering
the remarkable fertility of the soil, the Korean agri-
culturist has not obtained the results that might be
expected, though this is due not to any lack of indus-
try but rather to his antiquated methods and imple-
ments, which are as crude as those used in the Egypt
of the Pharaohs. The backward condition of agri-
culture in the peninsula is being remedied, however,
by the Japanese — themselves the most intensive and
successful farmers in the world — who are establishing
experiment stations, introducing modern methods and
machinery, and displaying the same energy and abil-
ity which have made them such formidable competi-
tors in California. Mark my words: Korea, under
Japanese tutelage, will be one of the most prosperous
agricultural countries in the world some day.

Korea is a land where poverty should be unknown,
for nature has lavishly endowed it with resources
and blessed it with a superb climate. During nine
months of the year the climate is delightful — most

KOREA 107

nearly comparable, perhaps, to that of northern Cali-
fornia. Though the three summer months are char-
acterized by heat, humidity, and heavy rains, they
are quite supportable, even for foreigners. Particu-
larly delightful are the bright, beautiful, strangely
calm and perfect mornings — clear as crystal and ex-
hilarating as dry champagne — which give Chosen its
name. With such a climate, a productive soil, an
abundant rainfall, with mountains rich in minerals
and coastal waters teeming with every variety of fish,
Korea needs only the security and encouragement of
a decent and unselfish government to make it one of
the most opulent countries in the East.

The condition of any people may be gaged with
considerable accuracy by their facilities for intercom-
munication. Judged by this standard, the Koreans
must be set down as an extremely unprogressive peo-
ple, for by far the greater part of the roads in the
peninsula are merely trails, so rough that even the
ubiquitous bicyclist sometimes has to pick up his ma-
chine and carry it on his back over the worst stretches,
often so narrow that laden bulls cannot pass. The
constant shuffling of feet through untold centuries
has worn these narrow paths down below the level
of the ground, so that during the rains they become
miniature canals. Indeed, during the rainy season,
when the streams have become brawling torrents and
the flimsy bridges have been swept away, all traffic
save that by junk along the rivers is perforce sus-

108 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

pended. Towns of considerable size are sometimes
connected only by narrow foot-paths running along
the tops of the embankments between the rice-fields.
Though the Japanese are steadily expanding and
improving the peninsular highway system, it will be
some years before motoring in Korea will be practi-
cable outside the immediate vicinity of the larger
cities and still longer before it will be enjoyable.

The government-owned Chosen Railway, which
now has close to fifteen hundred miles of line in op-
eration, is one of the best built, best equipped, and
best run systems in the Farther East. The main line,
which makes connections at Antung with the South
Manchuria Railway, traverses the entire length of
the peninsula to Fusan, whence extremely comfort-
able steamers maintain a rapid service across the
Korea Strait to Shimonoseki, where the Japanese
system begins. It is approximately six hundred miles
from Fusan to Antung, and the express trains make
the journey in about nineteen hours. A first-class
ticket costs in the neighborhood of $15.00; the fare
for second-class, which is scarcely distinguishable
from first, is $10.00; while $5.50 will pay for a third-
class ticket from one end of Korea to the other.
Branches connect the main line with Mok-po, Kun-
san, Jinsen (Chemulpo), and Chinnampo, the four
chief ports on the Yellow Sea, and with Gensan, on
the east coast of the peninsula, it being only a matter
of time before this latter line is pushed north to

KOREA 109

Vladivostok. Most of the equipment is American,
though the sleeping and dining-cars were built at
Dairen or in Japan and mounted on American-made
trucks. The aisles in the day-coaches, instead of
running down the center, as in the United States,
run down the side of the car, thus making the seats
almost twice as wide as those in American trains.
The sleeping-cars are divided into compartments,
after the European fashion, thereby affording for-
eign travelers a privacy which is highly desirable in
an Oriental country. The meals on the dining-cars
are well cooked and well served, Korea being one of
the few countries where the old "dollar dinner" is still
to be had. At every station is a large sign-board in
English and Japanese, giving a brief description of
the places of historic and scenic interest in the neigh-
borhood, their distance from the station, and how to
reach them — an idea which might well be adopted in
Western lands.

When the Japanese adopted the standard four-foot
eight-inch gage for the Korean system they assimil-
ated it with the Chinese railways, though at the same
time rendering it altogether different from their own
system in Japan, which is still upon the now inade-
quate meter gage. In adopting the standard gage
they had in mind something far more important, how-
ever, than providing Korea with an up-to-date rail-
way system. In shaping her Korean railway policy
Japan had three distinct objectives: first, to facilitate

110 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

the rapid movement of troops and supplies into Si-
beria, Manchuria, and China; second, to place the
empire in direct railway communication with Europe
via Mukden, Harbin, Manchouli, and the Trans-
Siberian ; third, to bring the South China market for
Japanese piece goods and the mid-China ore supply,
which is required for the Japanese steel works, into
connection with Fusan, whence it is but a short half -
day's steam to the great Japanese port of Shimono-
seki. As a result of the linking of the Korean and
Manchurian systems, Japan is now enabled to send
her manufactured goods by rail from Fusan to
Peking and Hankow, while the impending comple-
tion of the Hankow-Canton Railway will give her
vast new markets for her merchandise among the
teeming millions of southern China. The Shantung
Railway, which connects the seaport of Tsingtau with
the Peking-Shanghai system, provides Japan with
still another means of access to the Chinese markets —
a fact which explains her reluctance to surrender con-
trol of that much discussed and highly important
line. Thus it will be seen that these railways are
something more than twin lines of steel laid down for
the convenience of travelers and shippers. They are
the instruments which Japan is using to effect her
political and commercial penetration of eastern Asia.
Barring the busy port of Chemulpo, where the
first shot of the Russo-Japanese War was fired on
February 8, 1904, when the Japanese fleet attacked

KOREA 111

the Russian cruisers Variag and Korietz; and Ping-
Yang, the ancient and highly picturesque town which
was for centuries the capital of Korea, the only city
in the peninsula of more than passing interest to the
foreigner is the present capital, Seoul (pronounced
80wl, if you please), or, as the Japanese have re-
named it, Keijo. Encircled by a crumbling, crene-
lated wall, obviously modeled after the Great Wall
of China and built a century before Columbus set
foot on the beach of San Salvador, it stands on the
eastern bank of the broad, swift-flowing Han, nest-
ling in a bowl-shaped valley formed by two semi-cir-
cular mountain ranges whose bare brown peaks tower
above it in somber grandeur. Arid and forbidding as
these mountains look in winter, summer finds them
clothed in vivid green relieved here and there by great
splashes of heliotrope, honeysuckle and azalea. In
springtime the budding orchards of cherry, peach and
plum transform the valley into a sea of snowy blos-
soms.

Seoul, with not far from half a million inhabitants,
is the political, commercial and intellectual center of
Korea. For upward of eight centuries it was the
home of the Korean sovereigns, and few cities have
witnessed more cruelty, bloodshed, licentiousness and
corruption. It has several picturesque palaces, now
falling into decay, a small but exceptionally fine art
museum, mediocre botanical and zoological gardens,
a number of government buildings, erected by the

112 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

Japanese, which, though substantial, have small
architectural merit, street-a**, electric-light and tele-
phone systems, and a hotel that has only one superior
in Eastern Asia. The Chosen Hotel, which is op-
erated by the Korean Railways, stands in the walled
compound of an ancient temple amid a garden heavy
with the fragrance of many roses. At night, when
the paper lanterns on the terrace are reflected in the
lotos pools, and the incense from the Temple of
Heaven mingles with the perfume of the flowers, it
is a place to be marked with a white mile-stone on the
road of memory.

Seoul is a city of magnificent distances and of re-
markably wide streets — several of them are wider
than the Avenue du Bois in Paris — which are in
curious contrast to the mean and garish shops of tin-
der-box construction with which they are lined. One
great thoroughfare, the Chon-no, or Big Bell Street,
bisects the entire city, running from the East Gate
to the West Gate and far into the country in both
directions. It is not only the principal artery of the
capital but the "Main Street" of all Korea, for along
its dusty length flow placid, slow-moving townsmen,
dignified despite their absurd topknots and strag-
gling goatees, their enormous, horn-rimmed goggles
and transparent fly-trap hats; short, squat women
with olive skins and coarse black hair and figures
which look like meal sacks with a string tied around
the middle, their shapeless garments of white cotton

CHOSEN

(KOREA)

SCALE OF MILES
50 100 150 200 260

Principal B&Ilroads..

Chemufpfio)S>f&Seoul

YELL O W „-,..

SEA

CS.Hammortd A Co.,N.Y.

^N/

KOREA 118

concealing everything save their breasts, which are
brazenly exposed; Yang-bans, as the native officials
are known, lolling somnolently in palanquins borne
by sweating coolies; peasants, fresh from the coun-
try districts, leading strings of squealing, kicking
ponies laden with farm produce or bulls piled high
with the twigs which the Koreans use for fuel ; Japa-
nese officials in ill-fitting European clothes and Japa-
nese officers in red-banded caps and smart khaki
uniforms ; school-boys with knapsacks on their backs,
speeding by on bicycles, their baggy garments flap-
ping in the breeze; rickshaws, drawn by half -naked
coolies, skimming along on silent wheels; creaking
carts hauled by lumbering bullocks; clanging
street-cars ; motors of all makes and sizes, from lordly
Rolls-Royces to bustling members of the well known
Ford family of Detroit — all these combine to im-
part to the great thoroughfare a strange blend of the
medieval and the modern, of the backward and the
progressive, of the Orient and the Occident.

But of all the things I saw in this most picturesque
and curious city, there were two which struck me as
being of peculiar significance. One is a deserted gar-
den, overgrown by shrubbery and rank with weeds.
It is at the back of the North Palace, surrounded by
a crumbling and discolored wall. Here, in the cold
gray dawn of an autumn morning in 1895, the clever
and ambitious queen, the most brilliant and the most
cruel Korean woman of her time, was brutally mur-

114. ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

dered by a band of Japanese and Korean assassins. 1
The other place to which I refer is a long, low, unpre-
tentious cottage in the gardens of the East Palace,
screened from observation by shrubbery and high
hedges. Here, guarded by Japanese sentries and
watched by Japanese spies, dwells in enforced seclu-
sion a pasty-faced, unhealthy-looking youth, who, ac-
cording to popular report at least, is little better than
an imbecile. He is the dethroned emperor, now
known as His Imperial Highness Prince Yi Kon, the
title which the Japanese have bestowed upon him, the
last of that long line of sovereigns who ruled in
Korea for upward of two thousand years. In the
palace, not a stone's throw distant, is a vast and lofty
room, its walls hung with the richest of brocades, its
carven woodwork embellished in all the colors of the
chromatic scale. On a dais in the center of this mag-
nificent apartment, flanked by the gorgeous trappings
of royalty and cushioned in the imperial yellow, is
an empty throne.

n

The first impressions of most visitors in Korea are
generally unfavorable to the Koreans. This is due,
in the first place, to the disgusting filth and squalor
amid which the great mass of the people live, which

1 Though the Japanese Minister, Viscount Miura, appears to have
Instigated this shocking crime, there is every reason to believe that he
acted without the knowledge of his government

KOREA 115

has led some one to describe the country as "a going
piggery"; secondly, to the cowed manner and abject
servility of the average Korean, which reminds one
of a dog that has been beaten and which is probably
due to the same cause; and lastly, to the grotesque
and unbecoming national costume. Every adult male
in Korea wears on the top of his otherwise shaven
head what looks for all the world like a twist of navy
plug. This is the topknot, which is as distinguish-
ing a mark of the Korean as the queue formerly was
of the Chinese. But, whereas the queue was a sym-
bol of subjugation, the topknot is the Korean's badge
of legal manhood, and, until he reaches the age when
he is pertnitted to wear it, he is known as "a half-
man." It is protected by a transparent hat of woven
horsehair, many sizes too small, held in place by
broad black ribbons tied beneath the chin, which lend
to the wearer's chubby face, with its drooping and at-
tenuated mustaches or straggling chin-whisker, an
infantile and comical expression. Should the horse-
hair hat get wet, it is ruined, so, to prevent this, it
is covered in inclement weather with a conical affair
of oiled paper, producing an effect as ludicrous as
it is bizarre. The rest of the costume consists of
a short, shapeless jacket and enormously baggy
trousers which are confined at the ankles by means
of strings. The garments of the poorer classes are
made of a coarse white grasscloth, woven by the peas-
ants themselves, but the upper classes, when they can

116 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

afford it, wear thin silks that vie with Joseph's coat
in their diversity of colors. In the case of the Yang-
bans — officials and men of leisure — this curious en-
semble is completed by the addition of an enormous
pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and a pipe with a
yard-long stem and a bowl the size of a thimble.
Thus arrayed, the Greek gods would have looked
like circus clowns.

The garb of the Korean women, though less ludi-
crous than that of the men, is equally unattractive:
an apology for a zouave jacket and exaggerated
Turkish trousers, the latter all but concealed, how-
ever, by a petticoat as shapeless as a sheet. Between
the petticoat and the jacket there is a hiatus of bare
skin, the breasts being displayed as fully and un-
blushingly as the damsels of Mr. Ziegfeld's chorus
display their legs. Were the Korean women less
faded and of more youthful mold this daring decol-
letage might be more alluring.

To form a just appreciation of the mental and
moral characteristics of an alien race, particularly an
Oriental race, is a delicate and difficult matter, even
for those who have spent years among the people in
question, while a casual observer like myself is in
constant danger of indulging in hasty and inaccurate
observations based on inadequate knowledge and lim-
ited opportunities for observation. In order, there-
fore, that I may not lay myself open to charges of

KOREA 117

superficiality or prejudice, I have drawn the mate-
rials for the following sketch of Korean character
and characteristics from the statements of Mr. Homer
B. Hurlbert, 1 one of the foremost authorities on
Korean history, life and customs, and an avowed
friend of the Koreans.

Let it be emphasized, in the first place, that the
Korean is a man of high intellectual possibilities, his
present state of moral and mental stagnation being
directly traceable to his unhappy history, his wretched
condition, and his discouraging surroundings. Lift
him out of this slough of despondency, set him on
his feet, give him a chance to develop independently
and naturally, and you would have as good a brain
as the Far East can produce. It is the experience
of those who have had to do with the various peoples
of the extreme Orient that it is easier to understand
the Korean and to get close to him than it is to under-
stand either the Japanese or the Chinese. While the
Japanese inclines toward the idealistic, and the Chi-
nese leans toward the materialistic, the temperament
of the Korean lies midway between the two, even as
his country lies between Japan and China. In other
words, he is the most rational, judged by Western
standards, of all the Far Eastern races. I am per-
fectly aware that those who possess only a superficial
acquaintance with the Korean, and those others who,
actuated by political motives or racial prejudices,

1 See Mr. Hurlbert's "The Passing of Korea,"

118 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

make it their business to belittle and discredit him,
will jeer at this appreciation; but those who have
had the opportunity and patience to go to the bot-
tom of the Korean character, and are able to dis-
tinguish the true Korean from some of the caricatures
which have been drawn of him, will confirm the asser-
tion that he possesses certain qualities which, were
they developed, would make him a reputable member
of the community of nations.

The Korean always looks toward yesterday instead
of toward to-morrow. He has a proverb^ "If you
try to shorten the road by cutting 'cross lots you will
fall in with robbers." In other words, he believes
in staying in the old ruts instead of making new ones.
What was good enough for his great-great-grand-
father, he argues, is good enough for him. Yet he can
be induced to abandon his conservatism by convinc-
ing him that a change would be to his own advantage,
as is shown by his enthusiastic adoption of bicycles,
phonographs, sewing-machines, and other Western
innovations.

Foreigners are unfavorably impressed by the read-
iness of the impecunious Korean to live on his rela-
tives or friends, but to a large extent this is offset by
his willingness, when his finances are in a flourishing
condition, to let his relatives and friends live on him.
The moment a man attains prosperity he automati-
cally becomes the social head of his clan, and his rela-
tives, no matter how far removed, descend upon him

KOREA 119

in droves to live indefinitely upon his bounty. If
amounts to a sort of nepotistic communism in which
every m*mM ^b-to divide hi, prdfc, iriHi
the less prosperous members of his family, many a
Korean having been impoverished by the heavy de-
mands thus made upon him. It should be added,
however, that this custom is by no means peculiar
to the Koreans, for precisely the same practice pre-
vails among the Filipinos and, to a certain extent,
among the Malays.

Mr. Hurlbert seems to be of the opinion, however,
that the average Korean rather welcomes the burden
thus imposed upon him, for it caters to his over-
whelming egotism and pride and gives him an excuse
for lording it over his less fortunate relatives and
friends. For the Korean is a born social climber,
and, like social climbers in every country, any acces-
sion of importance goes to his head like champagne.
Give a Korean a position of even minor responsibility
and he will swell up like a toy balloon. The slightest
social or business promotion is prone to make him
very offensive, his overbearing manners and pro-
nounced self-esteem rendering him quite unfitted for
employment in positions where tact and courtesy are
required. The medal has another and more pleasing
side, however, for there is the best of evidence that
a large number of Koreans die annually from starva-
tion because they are too proud to beg or borrow or
to sorn upon their friends. In Seoul there is one

120 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

whole quarter almost wholly populated by those on
whom Fortune has turned a cold shoulder. It lies
under the slopes of South Mountain, and you have
only to say of a man that he is a "South Ward gentle-
man" to tell the whole story.

In the matter of veracity the Korean measures well
up to the best standards of the Orient, which are
none too high at best. Some people lie out of pure
maliciousness; others for the fun of the thing. The
Korean does not belong in either of these categories ;
but if he gets into trouble or is faced by a sudden
emergency, or if the success of some plan necessitates
a lie, he does not hesitate to take a few liberties with
the truth. The difference between the Korean and
the European is illustrated by their reactions if given
the lie direct. Before calling a European a liar it
is the part of wisdom to prepare for sudden emer-
gencies, whereas it is as common for Koreans to use
the expression "You're a liar I" as it is for an Ameri-
can to remark "What, really?" or "Is it possible?"
or "You don't say sol" As Mr. Hurlbert succinctly
puts it, a Korean sees about as much moral turpitude
in a lie as we see in a split infinitive.

Though nothing in my own experience in Korea led
me to believe that the Korean is any more dishonest
than his Japanese or Chinese neighbors, I was told
that he does not hesitate to appropriate anything
which excites his cupidity when he can do so with
safety to himself. The Korean costume struck

KOREA 121

me as affording a standing inducement to pocket-
picking, the capacious sleeves and balloon-like trous-
ers providing ideal places of concealment for pur-
loined articles. Like all Orientals, the Korean is an
inveterate gambler, making his appeals to Lady Luck
through the medium of dominoes or cards, the latter
being made of stiff oiled paper, half an inch wide and
eight inches long. There are few harder or more
constant drinkers than the Korean. He is as fond
of "fire water" as the red man of the West and
periodically embarks on drunken and disorderly
sprees. On these occasions he is prone to display
unusual assertiveness, which he manifests by forcibly
abducting some neighboring beauty or emphasizing
his opinions by beating in the head of a friend.

As for morality in its narrower sense, the Koreans
are as easy as an old shoe. And it would be surpris-
ing if they were otherwise, for from the dawn of
Korea's history her ruling classes have set an ex-
ample of depravity and debauchery without parallel
save in ancient Greece and Rome. Indeed, the Greek
hetaera has her nearest modern equivalent in the
Korean kiscmg, or dancing-girl. These "leaves of
sunlight," a feature of Korean life, stand apart in
a class of their own. In the days of Korea's inde-
pendence they were attached to a department of the
government, were controlled by a special bureau of
the court, and were supported from the national treas-
ury. They are trained from earliest childhood with

122 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

*

a view to making them brilliant and entertaining com-
panions, the one sign of their profession, indeed, be-
ing their culture, intellectual development, and charm*
Korean parents, upon meeting with financial reverses,
frequently dedicate their daughters to the career of
a kisang, just as, in the days of the empire, they ap-
prenticed their sons to that of a eunuch. Besides
these privileged and pampered playthings of the rich,
Korea has another and far larger class of women of
easy virtue of a lower and less attractive grade. But
this much must be said for the Koreans: until the
Japanese came prostitutes were not recognized by
law or advertised by segregation.

The Korean, as both Mr. Hurlbert and Mr. Philip
Terry 1 have noted, is devoid of humane instincts
where animals are concerned. If a lame dog or a sick
cat is seen upon the street, old and young enthusiasti-
cally join in the sport of stoning it to death. They
take particular delight in catching insects and pulling
off their legs and wings, going into gales of laughter
at the contortions of the tortured creatures. Their
callousness to suffering is exemplified in their meth-
ods of slaughtering animals for food. In killing a
beef the butcher first cuts the throat of the animal and
inserts a peg in the opening, after which he proceeds
to beat the frenzied creature on the rump with a heavy
mallet until it is dead. The process takes about an

*See Terry's "The Japanese Empire."

KOREA 128

hour and the poor animal suffers agonies before death
intervenes, but, as the Korean will point out, very
little blood is lost by this method, the meat is full of it,
and its greater weight consequently means more profit
for the butcher. Goats are killed by pulling them
to and fro in a stream, thus destroying the rank taste
of the meat and enabling it to be sold for mutton.
Dogs are despatched by twirling them in a noose
until they are dead, after which they axe bled, dog-
meat being a common article of food among the
poorer classes.

It would be easier to overlook the Korean's other
weaknesses were it not for his incurable aversion to
cleanliness* Water he never uses except with his
meals, and then only when there is nothing stronger
to be had; with soap he does not possess so much as
a nodding acquaintance. As might be expected, there-
fore, his voluminous, dirt-caked clothing is usually
alive with vermin. His villages are but one degree
removed from pig-sties — mere clusters of hovels open-
ing on narrow, refuse-littered streets from whose open
drains assorted stenches rise to high heaven. You
do not have to see a Korean village to be made aware
of its existence, for when the wind is in the right di-
rection it is as manifest as a fertilizer plant. If the
filth and squalor amid which he lives are distasteful
to the Korean, he never shows it; he is always com-
placent. One might say of Korea, as Artemas Ward

124 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

once remarked of Spain, that there would be more
arable land in the country if the people did not carry
so much of it around on their persons.

Though the upper class Koreans are, with few ex-
ceptions, slothful, purposeless, and born dawdlers,
the peasants, when well trained and competently su-
pervised, make excellent workmen, the success of
those who have emigrated to Hawaii testifying to
their willingness to work. American and British
mine managers have told me that the Korean miner,
if tactfully handled, has no superior in the world.
Taking him by and large, however, the countryman
and the town dweller, the upper class and the lower,
the Korean can hardly be characterized as a hard
worker. The trouble is that he is without ambition.
The thing he does best is nothing; his clothes always
wear out first in the seat. Indeed, he might appro-
priately adopt that favorite doggerel of the American
negro, whom, in his distaste for physical exertion, he
so greatly resembles :

Dat's de reason why
I's as happy as a bee,
Fur I don't trouble work
An' work don't trouble me.

Tet there are a fair number of items to be listed
on the credit side of the ledger. First of all is the
Korean's good nature, for when even passably well
treated he is docile and easy to control. Secondly
comes his unfailing hospitality, both to utter strangers

KOREA 125

and, as I have already shown, to impecunious rela-
tives and friends. Another redeeming trait is a cer-
tain sturdiness of character — perhaps stubbornness
would be a better word — which has enabled him to
preserve his nationality under the sorest trials. The
want of courage and self-reliance so frequently com-
mented on by foreigners are not, I am convinced,
the result of constitutional cowardice, but are prob-
ably due to centuries of servitude and oppression.
Koreans have fought well on occasion, the irregular
bands who have been conducting a guerilla warfare
along the Manchurian border having time and again
proved themselves the equals of the best troops that
Japan could send against them, while during the sup-
pression of the independence movement many of the
Korean prisoners displayed a very high order of
moral courage in the face of death. I doubt, indeed,
if braver men are to be found anywhere than the
tiger-hunters of the hills, who, armed with antiquated,
long-barreled, percussion muskets, follow the great
Korean tiger into its den, approach to within a few
paces, and kill it with a single shot. As there is no
time to reload, the man who misses dies; the tiger
attends to that.

Now it should be remembered that in my estimate
of the Korean character I have been speaking of the
average Korean, which means the peasant, for the
peasantry form the great mass of the population.
But, though the Korean of the old school admittedly

126 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

presents a discouraging problem, the country is grad-
ually gaining a considerable class of young men who
have been educated abroad and who are intelligent,
cultured, progressive, and genuinely patriotic. An-
other encouraging sign is the growing demand among
all classes for education, the number of students reg-
istered last year being unprecedented in the history
of the country. The Koreans make excellent stu-
dents, displaying particular aptness for mathematics.
They are quick of comprehension, and those who know
them well assure me that there is no doubt that they
are the intellectual equals of the Japanese. All they
need is the opportunity and the incentive.

I, for one, can perfectly well understand how the
alert, energetic, industrious, progressive, aggressive
Japanese have been exasperated to the limit of their
patience by the ignorance, slothfulness, irresolution
and squalor of this people whom they have under-
taken to reform. I can understand why the Japanese
consider them and treat them as inferiors. Yet there
are traits of mind and heart in the Korean which, if
developed, would prove an enormous asset to the em-
pire. Make no mistake about that. Japan cannot
afford to permit the Koreans, who form one quarter
of her total population, to be overrun and crushed
beneath the wheels of a selfish and short-sighted
policy directed by a little group of military men.
Were she to do so she would be guilty, in the words
of Talleyrand, of something worse than a crimi
a mistake.

KOREA 127

2. THE JAPANESE IN KOBEA

On a sultry August afternoon in 1905, four men
— two burly, bearded Russians and two slight,
suave Japanese — bending over a table in an unim-
pressive red brick building within the walls of the
Navy Yard at Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
scrawled their signatures at the bottom of a closely
written parchment, thereby bringing to an end the
stupendous struggle between their respective coun-
tries for the mastery of the Farther East. But, in
thus concluding a peace between their own great em-
pires, the plenipotentiaries were signing the death
warrant of a third nation, a nation which had kept
its independence for upward of two thousand years,
for, by the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth, Rus-
sia recognized Japan's "paramount political, military,
and economical interests'' in Korea. Thus guaran-
teed complete freedom of action in the peninsula,
Japan proclaimed a protectorate over the ancient
little kingdom before the ink on the treaty was fairly
dry, and Korea passed into the limbo of subject
nations.

The Koreans and their champions have never
ceased to denounce the methods employed by Japan
in the establishment of the protectorate, asserting,
and probably with some degree of truth, that the

128 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

Emperor of Korea and his ministers were intimi-
dated into signing away the independence of their
country. But, though the methods which Japan em-
ployed in effecting this step may be open to criticism,
that the step was imperative and inevitable cannot
seriously be questioned. Korea's loss of independ-
ence was primarily due to her unfortunate geograph-
ical position. Her internal condition, bad as it was,
was only contributory in bringing about her down-
fall. Glance at the map and you will see that the
peninsula of Korea is a pistol pointed straight at the
heart of Japan. As long as that weapon remained,
unloaded, on the table, Japan felt tolerably secure.
But when she saw an unfriendly hand moving stealth-
ily to grasp it, she was forced to take decisive action
in order to insure her own safety. For with nations,
as with individuals, self-preservation is the first law
of nature.

In 1894 China, which had long claimed a shadowy
suzerainty over Korea — a suzerainty not recognized
by Japan— despatched a military force to the penin-
sula for the ostensible purpose of stabilizing the gov-
ernment of the little kingdom and effecting internal
reforms. In reality it was a move to bring Korea
under the rule of Peking. China's curt refusal to
withdraw her troops forced Japan to choose between
a permanent Chinese occupation of the peninsula
and war. She chose the latter and, by a series of
continuous and easy victories, quickly won an over-

f oiled paper, for the purpose of protecting the hat
FUNERAL OF THE EX-EM PEROR OF KOREA

KOREA 129

whelming triumph. By the terms of the treaty of
peace China abandoned her pretensions to the suze-
rainty of Korea, which remained, in theory at least,
an independent kingdom. This was Japan's first
modern war and it was fought to keep China from
obtaining possession of the Korean pistol.

Scarcely was Japan rid of the Chinese menace,
however, than another and far more formidable
enemy reached down from the north to snatch the
weapon so temptingly displayed. In 1903 the Em-
peror of Korea granted permission to a Russian
lumber company to fell timber on the Korean side
of the Yalu River. This seemingly innocent com-
mercial concession provided the land-hungry Musco-
vites with a pretext for demanding the cession of a
Korean harbor — Yongampo — on the Yellow Sea.
The Bear was coming down to the Warm Water.
Fully awake to her peril, Japan promptly and vigor-
ously protested against this aggression, insisting that
Russia should keep out of Korea and demanding that
her own special interests in the peninsula should be
recognized. Russia, made over-confident by her huge
army and enormous resources, contemptuously re-
fused. Thus Japan found herself confronted by the
same problem with the Muscovite that she had fought
out with the Celestial a decade before. The announce-
ment of her decision came with paralyzing sudden-
ness in the dimness of a February dawn in 1904,
when she launched a torpedo attack against the Rus-

180 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

sian squadron lying under the guns of Port Arthur.
The struggle that followed cost the island empire
185,000 lives and eight hundred million dollars, but
in eighteen months the men from the little islands,
who in their youth had worn skirts and carried painted
fans and drunk their tea from eggshell cups the size
of thimbles, whipped to a standstill the Colossus of
the North.

Having thus waged two wars on account of Korea,
Japan emerged from the second conflict fully con-
vinced that her national security depended upon her
preventing the peninsula from again falling under
the dominance of a third power. Nor could she per-
mit the little kingdom to drift into a condition of
such internal chaos as to imperil foreign interests
and thereby provide an excuse for foreign interfer-
ence. There seemed only one way for Japan to dis-
pel for good and all the threatening cloud which had
so long overshadowed her: she must herself assume
supervision of Korea's affairs. Instead of permitting
the pistol to remain upon the table, a standing invita-
tion to her enemies, she decided to take charge of it
herself. It was a case of "safety first."

The establishment of the protectorate placed
Korea in much the same relation to Japan that Egypt
bore to England when the latter intervened in the
Nile country in 1882. There is, indeed, a striking
analogy between the two cases. Egypt, its peas-
antry cruelly oppressed and exploited by a corrupt

KOREA 181

and vicious government, occupied a position of im-
mense strategic importance astride the Suez Canal,
the gateway to England's eastern possessions. Korea,
with an equally wretched population and an even
worse government, by virtue of her commanding posi-
tion on the Straits of Korea lay squarely athwart
Japan's road to her sphere of influence in Manchuria.
Japan could no more take the risk of another power
gaining a foothold in Korea and thereby threatening
her causeway to the Asian mainland than England
could take the risk of another power gaining a foot-
hold in Egypt and threatening her sea-road to
India. England intervened in Egypt in order to
avert foreign complications by reforming its gov-
ernment and ameliorating the condition of its peo-
ple. Japan intervened in Korea for precisely the
same reasons. England sent to Egypt as proconsul
her greatest administrator, Evelyn Baring, later Lord
Cromer. Japan sent to Korea her greatest adminis-
trator, Marquis I to. Each was confronted by the
same problem : to reform a government rotten to the
core and to effect the regeneration of a people re-
duced to the lowest depths of misery and degrada-
tion by centuries of spoliation and oppression. Had
Ito not fallen by the bullet of a Korean assassin at the
moment when the patient, tactful, sympathetic ad-
ministration which he had established was beginning
to show results, there is little doubt that he would
have met with as astonishing success in rehabilitating

182 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

the "Land of the Morning Calm" as Cromer did in
the "Land of the Valley of the Nile."

When the Japanese undertook the task of regen-
erating Korea there were but two classes in that
unhappy country — the spoilers and the spoiled. Ex-
tortion, bribery, and peculation were the rule in every
branch of the government and in every grade ; every
position was for sale to the highest bidder. The peas-
antry had neither rights nor privileges, save that of
being the ultimate sponge. The court at Seoul was
permeated with treachery and intrigue. Foreigners
found, as the natives had long known, that no man's
life or property was safe from the rapacity of the
court party and its henchmen. Political assassina-
tions were so common as scarcely to provoke com-
ment. Never, perhaps, has there existed a weaker
government, one more degraded and corrupt, one
more utterly incapable of governing. No govern-
ment more richly deserved its fate.

In June, 1907, the weak, intrigue-loving old em-
peror, notwithstanding his agreement not to engage
in any act of an international character except
through the medium of Japan, secretly despatched
three emissaries to The Hague, where the Second
Peace Conference was sitting, in an attempt to bring
about foreign intervention. In order to save their
country from the consequences of the emperor's in-
discretion, which the Japanese regarded as treach-
ery, the Korean cabinet, composed, for a wonder, of

KOREA 188

patriotic and far-seeing men, virtually insisted on
the sovereign's abdication. He was succeeded by
the crown prince, a youth who, if popular report is
to be believed, has been mentally incompetent from
birth, but his tenure of the puppetship was destined
to be of brief duration.

Meanwhile, political conditions in Seoul were go-
ing from bad to worse. Plot and counterplot fol-
lowed each other in rapid succession. To avert an-
archy, the Japanese put down these conspiracies with
an iron hand. And to protect the peasantry, who
were powerless to protect themselves, they suppressed
extortion and oppression with equal firmness. The
firm attitude of the government so alarmed and in-
furiated the corruptionists and conspirators that they
had recourse to the Korean's traditional method of
political retaliation — assassination. This campaign
of terrorism, which culminated in the brutal murder
of Prince Ito, Korea's staunchest friend, only served
to hasten the end, which came on the twenty-second
of August, 1910, when Korea was formally annexed
to the Empire of Japan.

The imperial rescript proclaiming the annexation
was th@ signal for the systematic Japanization of
Korea to begin* And it was begun with all the
method and thoroughness so characteristic of the peo-
ple of Nippon. The conciliatory policy of Prince
Ito gave way to a Bismarckian policy of blood and
iron. Those who now shaped Japan's Korean policy

184 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

were not content to work toward a genuine amalga-
mation of the Koreans with the Japanese by a proc-
ess of education and conciliation. They insisted on
forcible denationalization. Instead of being far-
sighted enough to grant the Koreans the large meas-
ure of autonomy which we have given to the Filipinos
and the Porto Ricans, which England has given to
the Boers and the Egyptians, they made the mistake
of attempting to extirpate the language and the lit-
erature of the Koreans, to destroy their national
ideals, to root out their ancient manners and customs.
In short, they tried to mold these new subjects over
again, mistakenly believing that, were sufficient pres-
sure applied, they would emerge from the process as
Japanese, though I imagine that it was never intended
that they should be anything except an inferior grade
of Japanese, subject to restrictions and disabilities
from which the islanders themselves were immune. I
may be doing those who were responsible for this
policy a grave injustice, but, judging their aims by
their actions, I am tempted to believe that they
dreamed of eventually bringing the Koreans to a
status not far removed from that of the American
negro, thereby giving to the empire seventeen millions
of patient, uncomplaining, and submissive subjects,
hewers of wood and drawers of water, who would ac-
cept without remonstrance the role of social, political,
and economic inferiority assigned to them. In adopt-
ing this policy they committed the first of the series

KOREA 185

of psychological and political blunders which have
caused such grave criticism of Japanese rule in Korea
and which have provided the enemies of Japan with
so much ammunition. Mind you, I am not suggesting
that progressive Japanese opinion approved of this
policy, for it did not. The Korean program repre-
sented the views of the military party alone. Indeed,
there was a considerable element in Japan which dis-
approved of the annexation altogether, holding that
a resentful and rebellious Korea, annexed against her
will, standing at Japan's door, would prove a source
of weakness rather than of strength to the empire.

Korea was now an integral part of the Japanese
Empire. But though the instrument which brought
the two peoples together specifically and by implica-
tion provides that Koreans shall share in the public
affairs of Japan, the Japanese proceeded to treat
Korea as a conquered nation. It was at once placed
under military rule, General Count Terauchi, a grim
soldier of the old samurai school, being appointed
resident-general and clothed with almost sovereign
powers. Soldiery, gendarmerie, and police were
poured into the new province until it assumed the
appearance of a great armed camp. Then, with the
stage set, the curtain rose on the tragic spectacle of
the denationalization of a people.

186 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

What I now have to say cannot but prove distaste-
ful reading for the Japanese and their friends. Yet
to minimize, or apologize for, or ignore the deplorable
blunders which marred Japan's administrative record
in Korea during the decade immediately following
the annexation, as certain American champions of
Japan have done, would only impair the value of
this book in the eyes of thoughtful and impartially-
minded men, without rendering any corresponding
service either to the Japanese or the Koreans, Were
I to attempt to make the picture more flattering to
Japanese pride by leaving out the blemishes, I should
be failing in that duty which every self-respecting
author owes to his readers and to himself. On the
other hand, I shall not permit myself to be influenced
by the usually exaggerated and frequently untruthful
charges made against the Japanese administration
by the Koreans and their champions. I believe that
every statement contained in the succeeding pages
can be fully substantiated, in many cases by the
"Annual Report" of the Government-General of
Korea itself.

One of the first steps taken by the Japanese in
their organized campaign of denationalization was
the enactment of legislation denying freedom of the
press, of speech, and of assembly to the Koreans. In

KOREA 187

pursuance of this policy all the papers and periodi-
cals owned or managed by Koreans were suppressed.
"At the end of the fiscal year 1916 there were twenty
newspapers published in Chosen, of which eighteen
were in Japanese, one in Korean, and one in Eng-
lish/' says the "Annual Report," which might have
added that they were all Japanese, and that three of
them, including the last two, were government organs.
During the reign of repression the only non- Japanese
publications in Korea were certain newspapers
printed secretly, while their publishers were "on the
run," and distributed from hand to hand, like the
famous Belgian journals issued during the German
occupation. The hand-presses and type were con-
veyed from hiding-place to hiding-place under cover
of night, the lives of the editors being as thrilling as
the Japanese police and spies could make them.

It having been determined that the Korean lan-
guage, like Korean literature, should die, an attempt
was made to destroy it by making Japanese the offi-
cial tongue not only in public documents and court
proceedings, but wherever possible in the schools.
It is instructive to compare this with our own policy
in the Philippines, where Spanish is taught as freely
and as widely as English. The text-books used in
the schools were printed in Japanese under the super-
vision of Japanese censors; the teachers were either
Japanese or Japanese-speaking Koreans. And, as
though to impress the children with the military might

188 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

of Japan, the teachers wore sabers. Imagine the
effect on a class of little girls when their teacher em-
phasized his authority by rattling his sword !

Though Korea has a history reaching back into
the past for two thousand years, its teaching in the
schools was forbidden. Nor, with the exception of
certain specially favored individuals, were Koreans
permitted to go abroad for study, except to Japan,
and those who had been studying abroad were
not permitted to return. Moreover, those who suc-
ceeded in obtaining permission to attend the Imperial
University at Tokyo were discouraged, if not actually
forbidden, from specializing in such subjects as law,
constitutional government, history, or economics, it
being the Japanese policy to encourage industrial
education along practical lines for their new subjects
to the exclusion of everything else. The Japanese
have always held that England, by encouraging a
purely academic education for the higher class Hindus
in India, was breeding discontent and agitation, and
they had no intention of trying a similar experiment
in Korea.

"The holding of public meetings in connection with
political affairs, or the gathering of crowds out of
doors, was also prohibited, except open-air religious
gatherings or school excursion parties, permission for
which might be obtained of the police authorities."
Thus reads a passage in the "Annual Report," which
further states that "most of the political association*

KOREA 189

and similar bodies were ordered to dissolve themselves
at the time of annexation. . • • Since then there has
been no political party or association, as such, among
the Koreans." This regulation was even more com-
prehensive than its wording would suggest. For ex-
ample, a Y. M. C. A. had to submit to the police the
date, hour, speaker, and topic of discussion of a pro-
posed meeting before it could obtain permission to
hold it; the same prohibitive principle applied to
interscholastic field-meets in which two or more
schools proposed to participate.

Another source of Korean resentment was provided
by the Japanese attitude toward religion. Broadly
speaking, religious instruction was forbidden in Ko-
rean schools. Religious gatherings of more than five
persons were required to obtain a permit from the
police and native Christians had to obtain special
authorization to hold religious services. This interfer-
ence with religious liberty was, in itself, the height
of political unwisdom, but the over-zealous police,
by their harsh and unintelligent methods of enforce-
ment, turned it into something perilously close to re-
ligious persecution. For example, such hymns as
"Onward, Christian Soldiers" were forbidden on the
ground that they tended to develop a militaristic
spirit among the Koreans — an inhibition only equaled
in recent times, in its patent absurdity, by Abdul
Hamid's famous dictum against the importation into
Turkey of dynamos "because they sound too much

140 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

like dynamite!" Prominent churchmen, leaders in
Korean thought and education, were arrested and
sometimes thrown into prison on charges so ridiculous
that they sounded more like a passage from a Gilbert
and Sullivan opera than a serious court proceeding.
For example, the pastor of one of the native churches
was arrested for having referred in his sermon to the
Kingdom of Heaven. He was freed with an admoni-
tion not to repeat the offense, the police magistrate
warning him that the only kingdom in which the
Koreans should display an interest was the King-
dom of Japan! , Mr. C. W. Kendall, in "The Truth
About Korea," cites the case of Pastor Kil of Ping-
Yang, who, for preaching against the evils of cigar-
ette-smoking by boys, was charged by the Japanese
authorities with treason. The argument of the Jap-
anese prosecutor, according to Mr. Kendall, ran
something after this fashion:

Pastor Kil preached against the use of cigarettes.

The manufacture of cigarettes is a government monopoly.

To speak against their use is to injure a government in-
stitution.

To injure a government institution is to work against the
government.

To work against the government is treason.

Ergo, Pastor Kil is guilty of treason.

Though upon annexation Korea became, in theory
at least, a province of the empire, the Koreans were
permitted neither a national assembly nor representa-
tion in the Japanese Diet, thus giving them justifica-

KOREA 141

tion for adopting the slogan, "Taxation without rep-
resentation is tyranny." Had the Japanese been more
familiar with American history they would have real-
ized that the same slogan cost England her American
colonies. Though in principle the Koreans were to be
accorded the same treatment as other subjects of the
emperor, discrimination of the most flagrant character
was practised against them everywhere. Koreans and
Japanese were subject to two entirely different codes
of legal procedure. The codes applying to Koreans
were severer, on the assumption that they needed
heavier penalties to bring about a desired result.
For example, corporal punishment could be legally
administered only to Koreans. Hence, if a Japa-
nese was convicted of a misdemeanor, he was im-
prisoned or fined. If a Korean was convicted of
the same offense, he was flogged — sometimes into
insensibility. If a Japanese was killed by the Seoul
street-railways, his family was paid two hundred yen.
If the victim was a Korean, the indemnity was half
that sum. A Japanese common laborer received
over half again as much pay as a Korean laborer
engaged in the same task, and the same rule applied
to skilled workmen and, for that matter, to govern-
ment officials. While eleven years are allotted to
Japanese youths for primary and secondary edu-
cation, only eight years were allowed the Koreans.
It has been suggested, incidentally, that this discrim-
ination in the curricula was the highest unintentional

142 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

compliment the Japanese could pay the exceptional
intellectual ability of the sons and daughters of
Korea.

Even more humiliating and degrading were the
various forms of social discrimination practised
against the Koreans. As staunch a defender of
Japan's policy in Korea as Dr. George Gleason ad-
mits this in his book, "What Shall I Think of Japan?"
"Nearly all Japanese assume an air of superiority
toward the Koreans/' he says. I can assert from per-
sonal observation that the great majority of Japanese
treat the Koreans in personal intercourse as the dirt
beneath their feet. A Japanese always takes his
place, as by right, at the head of a waiting line at a
post-office, bank, or railway-station. The Japanese
coolie kicks or punches the Korean who chances to
stand in his way. The Japanese petty functionaries
assume an air of hauteur and disdain in their deal-
ings with the Koreans. Even the Korean nobles
and princes of the royal house are treated with studied
condescension. It is only fair to add, however, that
this disregard of Korean susceptibilities is confined
in the main to Japanese of the lower and middle
classes. Every nation has its gentlemen.

Immediately upon annexation the peninsula was
flooded with gendarmes, police, spies, and informers,
who promptly proceeded to inaugurate a reign of ter-
rorism. On the pretext of searching for arms or se-
ditious literature the police entered private residences

KOREA 148

without search-warrants, still further irritating the
Koreans by invading the apartments of the women.
Spies, usually low-class Koreans, were everywhere,
adding to the general demoralization. No one knew
when, or in what form, the most harmless acts or
words might be reported to the authorities. Yet the
Koreans had no appeal from these oppressions, be-
cause, with no newspapers, they had no way of mak-
ing themselves heard.

"In the peninsula," tc quote again from the official
"Annual Report," "minor offenses relating to gam-
bling, bodily harm, etc., or to a violation of administra-
tive ordinances, which would ordinarily come under
the jurisdiction of the lowest courts, are adjudicated
by the police, instead of by ordinary judicial pro-
cedure." Thus it will be seen that the police, in addi-
tion to their regular functions of crime prevention
and the apprehension of criminals, were given judi-
cial power. They could sentence prisoners to fines,
flogging, imprisonment, or exile. The extreme un-
wisdom of granting such wide powers to the police,
who were totally incompetent to exercise them with
discretion and who, to make matters worse, were for
the most part men of petty minds and narrow sym-
pathies, requires no comment. Add to this the fact,
of which there exists indubitable proof, that the police
frequently tortured innocent persons in order to ex-
tract testimony from them, and it will be seen that
the Koreans had abundant ground for complaint.

144 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

That the police had gendarmes and soldiers asso-
ciated with them in the enforcement of the law led
the Koreans to regard the police not as civil servants
and protectors, but as oppressors. This feeling was
intensified by the multitude of petty and vexatious
regulations, many of which the people could not
understand, and by the harsh and indiscriminate man-
ner in which they were administered. The records of
the summary courts — which correspond to our police
courts — for 1915 show a total of 59,488 persons
brought to trial and only seven acquitted. Dr. Glea-
son, who is strongly pro-Japanese in his sympathies,
asserts that in the four years, 1913-16, 221,000 per-
sons were tried and only 496 acquitted. In the re-
port issued by the government-general for the year
1916-17 it is stated that out of 82,121 offenders dealt
with "in police summary judgment," 81,139 were sen-
tenced, 952 were pardoned, and only 30 were able
to prove their innocence. Dr. Hugh C. Cynn, in his
dispassionate and, on the whole, remarkably just
book, "The Rebirth of Korea," dryly remarks that
"either the Japanese police in Korea are so superior
to those of all other nations in detecting crime that
they almost never run down any but the actual crim-
inals, or the Koreans, when they get into the meshes
of the police and gendarme-interpreted ordinances,
find it next to impossible to prove their innocence."

Instead of putting Korean interests first, Japan
made the mistake of ruling the peninsula primarily

KOREA 145

for her own giory and the benefit of her own people.
The Japanese settler, the Japanese trader, the Japa-
nese concessionaire, were the men whose needs the
government-general at Seoul studied and whose de-
mands it heeded. The Koreans, without influence and
without protection and hampered by serious political
disabilities and restrictions, could be exploited with
impunity, provided the methods used were not too
outrageous. Under the old Korean Government the
land was divided into four classes: 1

1. Private lands, owned by individuals.

2. Crown lands, belonging to the emperor but
leased in perpetuity to private individuals.

8. Municipal lands, the titles to which were vested
in the various municipalities, but the practical owner-
ship of which was in the hands of private individuals.

4. Lands belonging to the Buddhist temples.

Owners of private lands paid taxes to the govern-
ment. Tenants of crown lands paid rental to the
royal household. Those occupying municipal lands
paid fees to the respective municipalities. The tem-
ple lands, which were held under a communistic ar-
rangement by the Buddhists, were exempt from taxa-
tion. In many cases the leasehold of these lands had
acquired a value almost equal to that of land held
in full possession. One of the first acts of the Japa-
nese administration was to survey the country and
expropriate all crown, municipal, and temple lands,

1 "The Truth About Korea," by C. W. KendalL

146 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

on the ground that, as they did not belong to private
individuals, they must be the property of the govern-
ment. They were then turned over to a concern
known as the Oriental Development Company, which
was a government-fostered organization for encourag-
ing the immigration of Japanese into Korea. This
company, by demanding greatly increased rentals
from the Korean tenants, forced them to abandon the
lands which they had tilled for generations in favor
of government-assisted Japanese settlers. The eco-
nomic unwisdom of this policy is shown by the fact
that, though some 400,000 Japanese have settled in
the peninsula since the annexation, upward of 1,500,-
000 Koreans have gone into voluntary exile in Man-
churia and Siberia because they could not stand the
pressure thus brought to bear upon them. The re-
peated assertions of the Japanese that they went into
Korea for the benefit of the Koreans reminds me of
an anecdote about one of the rulers of the House of
Hanover — I think it was George the First — who,
addressing his new subjects upon his arrival in Eng-
land, assured them in his broken English, "I am here
for your own good — for all your goods."

By virtue of Article V of the Treaty of Annexa-
tion, which bound "the Emperor of Japan to confer
peerages and monetary grants upon Koreans who,
on account of meritorious services, are regarded as
deserving such special recognition," some seventy-two

KOREA 147

Koreans were made counts, viscounts, and barons.
Had Japan chosen for the new nobility those men
who, by reason of their integrity, ability, and patriot-
ism, held the respect of the Korean people, this meas-
ure would have met with popular approval. But in-
stead she chose to honor the corruptionists and con-
spirators who had ruined the country, most of the
more upright and respected statesmen being con-
spicuous by their omission from the honors list. On
the other hand, the leaders of the former progressive
party, who were the real brains of the country, were
proscribed and persecuted. As a result, many of
them were forced to leave the country and the lives
of those who remained were made miserable by espion-
age and bullying. Had these men, the real leaders
of Korean public opinion, been treated in a tactful
and friendly manner by the Japanese, had they been
consulted on Korean problems, as England consulted
and honored her great Boer adversaries, Botha and
Smuts, I am convinced that it would have done more
than anything else to have won the confidence of the
Korean people and to have brought peace and content-
ment to the new province, for the Koreans were
heartily sick of the follies and extravagances of
the old regime. Instead of availing herself of
their knowledge of Korea's needs and profiting
by their advice, Japan made the mistake of driving
them into exile or imprisoning them. In so doing she

148 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

made martyrs of them in the eyes of their own people.
What a pity that the Japanese, in their treatment
of these men, could not have been blessed with the
shrewd common sense of that English sovereign who,
speaking of the leader of a rebellious faction, said, "I
won't let him make a martyr of himself."

In the foregoing pages I have sketched in brief out-
line the methods by which Japan sought to assimilate
the Korean people during the ten years following the
annexation. In doing this I have tried to be abso-
lutely fair. All of the abuses which I have cited are
fully substantiated by the official reports of the gov-
ernment-general itself. Of certain other charges,
which I have not been able to verify to my own satis-
faction, I have made no mention. Viewing the ques-
tion impartially, it appears to me that at the begin-
ning of 1920, when Japan inaugurated a milder and
more sympathetic rule in the peninsula, the Koreans
had no less than a dozen distinct and justifiable
grounds for complaint against the Japanese adminis-
tration. These might be summed up as follows :

1. Taxation without representation.

2. Denial of freedom of the press, of speech, and
of assembly.

8. Measures tending to the eventual extirpation
of the Korean language.

4. Educational discrimination.

5. Interference with the religious activities of the
people.

KOREA 149

6. Abuse of power by the police.

7. Multiplicity of irritating laws and lack of judg-
ment in their enforcement.

8. Expropriation of public lands.

0. Economic pressure against Koreans.

10. Persecution of Korean leaders.

11. Lack of tact, sympathy, and understanding
on the part of Japanese officials.

12. Social discrimination.

By these methods the Japanese sought to remold
their new subjects in their own image. But, much
to their surprise and perturbation, they discovered
in the Korean a character as hard, as obstinate, and
as unyielding as their own. At every turn they found
themselves confronted by that most baffling of all
obstacles — passive resistance. Had the Japanese
been far-sighted enough to treat the Koreans, who are
not a conquered race, as England treated the con-
quered Boers, there would have been a genuine amal-
gamation of the two peoples. And it is not a long step
from amalgamation to assimilation. But the Japa-
nese ignored this golden opportunity to win the
loyalty and friendship of their new subjects. They
entered on their task in a wrong spirit; they were
hampered by mistaken ideas. Failing utterly to
understand the Korean's psychology, they assumed
an attitude of contempt instead of sympathy. And
without sympathy on the part of the governors for

150 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

the governed, good government is impossible. 1
Imagine the upheaval in the British Empire if Eng-
land should suppress the vernacular newspapers of
the Hindus, if she should forbid the use of Arabic in
the courts of Egypt, if she should expropriate the
lands of the Indian princes, if she should prohibit the
teaching of the Koran in the schools of her Moham-
medan possessions. Yet that is a fair parallel to
the policy of the Japanese in Korea. They insisted
that the Koreans should speak their language, read
their newspapers, follow their customs, lead their
lives, even wear their clothing; in short, permit them-
selves to be remade mentally, spiritually, and out-
wardly. That the complete breakdown of this policy
has been clearly recognized by the more progressive
and discerning of the Japanese themselves is shown
by the report of Mr. Kenosuke Morya, whom the
Japanese constitutional party sent to Korea to in-
vestigate conditions on the spot. In it he says, "It
is a great mistake of colonial policy to enforce upon
the Koreans, with their two-thousand-year history,
the same spiritual and mental training as the Japa-
nese people,"

in

Yet during this same discouraging decade the Japa-
nese made amazing material progress in Korea. The

1 "Korea's Fight for Freedom," by P. A. McKenrie.

KOREA 151

old, effete, corrupt administration was swept away.
A cabinet was formed on the model of that in Japan.
An elaborate system of local government was adopted.
The judiciary was reformed. A sound monetary sys-
tem was established and maintained. Prisons were
cleansed and modernized. The mileage of the rail-
ways was doubled. The inadequate Korean harbors
were transformed into spacious ports equipped with
all modern appliances. Remarkable improvements
in the public health were effected by government hos-
pitals and systems of sanitation. New waterworks
were built in fourteen cities and towns. The 500
miles of road which existed in 1910 were increased to
8000, it being proposed to eventually cover the penin-
sula with a network of highways. New industries
were introduced, nearly 800 factories, something
hitherto unknown in the land, being established,
thereby providing occupation for thousands of Ko-
reans. Handsome and substantial public buildings
were erected. Streets were extended and paved and
charming parks laid out. Primary, secondary, tech-
nical, agricultural, forestry, and other schools, as well
as model farms and experimental stations, were
opened. Agriculture — the mainstay of the country —
was enormously developed, the Korean farmer being
taught new and profitable side-lines — fruit, cotton,
sugar-beet, hemp, tobacco, and silk-worm culture, and
sheep-breeding. Afforestation was pushed forward
on a truly astounding scale, no less than half a bil-

152 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

lion young trees being set out by the Japanese fores-
try service on the bare, brown hillsides. The area of
cultivated land was doubled. Fruit production was
more than doubled. The output of the Korean coal
mines was trebled. Cotton acreage increased by more
than 4500 per cent, and salt production by more
than 7000 per cent. There were increases of several
hundred per cent, in the acreages of wheat, beans, and
barley. By the introduction of modern appliances
the value of the fishery products doubled. The for-
eign trade of Korea went up from 59,000,000 yen to
181,000,000 yen in seven years. In less than a decade
after the annexation there were a million depositors
in the postal savings-banks — and this in a country
with a notoriously shiftless and improvident popula-
tion. In short, more public improvements were made,
civic reforms instituted, and economic progress ef-
fected in these ten years than the Koreans had so
much as thought of since their history began.

For this great work Japan deserves the highest
commendation. It is a striking testimonial to her
efficiency in effecting material reforms. And it is
likewise a testimonial to the capacity for making prog-
ress of the Koreans themselves. If successful col-
onial administration consisted only in effecting ma-
terial benefits, Japan's record in Korea would entitle
her to be regarded as one of the most successful col-
onizing nations in the world. The curious fact re-
mains that few, if any, of the writers on Korea have

KOREA 158

appraised this record of achievement at its true valu-
ation. 1 Their perspective is distorted by their preju-
dices. The pro-Korean writers, almost without
exception, have either minimized Japan's accomplish-
ments in the peninsula or have denied their benefit
to the Koreans themselves. On the other hand, such
pro-Japanese writers as Messrs. Sherrill, Glea-
son, and Hershey have magnified the chronicle of
progress until it all but obscures everything else. It
can no more benefit the Koreans for their champions
to shut their eyes to the undeniable good that the
Japanese have accomplished than it can serve Japan to
have her partisans ignore those evils which cry for
redress.

IV

Following the annexation many of the Korean lead-
ers who had tried to save their dying country in its
last desperate moments, recognizing the futility of
attempting to do anything further at that time, fled
to foreign countries. Some settled across the frontier
in Siberia and Manchuria; others established them-
selves in the Treaty Ports, in Manila, Honolulu, San
Francisco. A number of these political refugees con-

1 In "The Truth About Korea" Mr. C. W. Kendall devotes only four
lines to what Japan has done for the good of the Koreans. In his
"Modern Japan" Dr. A. S. Hershey devotes scarcely more space to dis-
cussing the shortcomings of the Japanese administration. The only
fearless and non-partisan account I have been able to find Is that con-
tained in Mr. J. 6. F, Bland's "Japan, China and Korea,"

154 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

stituted themselves into a "Provisional Government
of Korea," with headquarters at Shanghai, it being
claimed that the self-appointed members of this
"government" are supported by funds voluntarily
paid as taxes by the Korean people. It is very doubt-
ful, however, whether these enthusiastic young pa-
triots are as truly representative of the great mass of
the Korean people as the Korean National Associa-
tion, a society which claims to have a membership of
over a million Koreans living in exile throughout the
Farther East. At the same time, despite the activity
of the Japanese police, other secret societies, likewise
dedicated to freeing Korea from Japanese rule, were
organized in the peninsula itself. From all I have
been able to learn these associations are not composed
of dangerous radicals, disgruntled politicians, and bol-
shevist terrorists, as charged by the Japanese author-
ities, but, on the contrary, consist for the most part
of Korean scholars and progressives, many of them
graduates of American and European universities,
who have the best interests of their country sincerely
at heart. They are agitators, it is true, in that they
are agitating for their country's independence, but
what, pray, were Patrick Henry and Bolivar, Kos~
ciuszko and Juarez and Gomez?

Throughout the four years of the World War
there were manifest to keen observers many evidences
that a new spirit was gradually taking possession of
the Koreans. It would be stating only a part of the

KOREA 155

truth, however, to assert that the Japanese adminis-
tration was the sole cause of this national unrest.
Obnoxious though that administration was, it was
only contributory; the real cause was to be found in
the innate and irresistible desire of the Koreans to
govern themselves. They were hungry for freedom.
Now that the world had been made safe for democ-
racy; now that the Poles and the Croats and the
Czechs and the Lithuanians were about to achieve their
independence, is it any wonder that the Koreans felt
that the hour when they should strike for liberty was
likewise at hand? It was Woodrow Wilson's pronun-
ciamento on the right of small nations to self-deter-
mination which gave them their text and battle-cry. It
was the assembling of the peacemakers at Versailles
which gave them their opportunity. The Korean
leaders, believing, no doubt, that they could ride to
success on the wave of political freedom which was
sweeping the world, chose the time set for the opening
of the Peace Conference to launch their "passive
revolution." For the most part impractical vision-
aries, there is something of the pathetic in their fail-
ure to realize how hopeless was their attempt to inter-
est a distracted Europe in the fortunes of an obscure
little nation half the world away.

It was planned that the "revolution" should be
unique in the history of political uprising in that there
should be neither bloodshed nor violence. The par-
ticipants were explicitly warned that no one was to

156 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

be harmed. No property was to be destroyed or
damaged No rowdyism, no bolshevism, no terrorism
was to be tolerated. Orders were given that under no
circumstances were the demonstrators to resist the
Japanese police. If they were beaten, imprisoned,
or even killed they were to take their punishment
without complaint. Nothing must be done which
would bring reproach upon the name of Korea or
their movement. It was arranged that these passive
demonstrations should break out simultaneously in
all the larger towns and cities of the peninsula, while
in Seoul itself the demonstrators were to divide them-
selves into groups of three thousand, each under a
leader, and march to the various foreign consulates
and government offices, singing the Korean national
anthem and shouting "Manseit", which is the Korean
equivalent of "Hurrah I" In short, it was to be a
nation-wide demonstration in which seventeen million
Koreans were to impress on their Japanese rulers by
strictly peaceable methods that they would no longer
submit to misgovernment and oppression. When it
is remembered that for every Japanese in the penin-
sula there are fifty Koreans, it is not hard to guess
what would have happened if the demonstration had
not been a passive one.

How the great number of country people who were
to participate in the demonstration were to gain ac-
cess to the capital without arousing the suspicions of
the Japanese police was a question which caused some

KOREA 157

perplexity to the leaders of the movement, but it
was suddenly solved in the latter part of January,
1919, when the old ex-Emperor Yi passed away in
his palace in Seoul. Though he had been of no service
to his countrymen when alive, it seemed that he might
aid them unwittingly now that he was dead, for his
funeral, set for March 4, provided the excuse the
Korean leaders had been seeking for a sudden influx
of peasantry into the capital. In some way, however,
the carefully guarded secret reached the ears of the
police, whereupon the resourceful leaders suddenly
changed the date for the demonstration to March 1, —
the day set for the rehearsal of the funeral. Now the
rehearsal of a Korean funeral is almost as magnificent
as the event itself, so the authorities saw nothing to
cause alarm in the great numbers of Koreans who
came pouring into the capital by train and road, afoot,
and in lumbering carts and astride of horses.

The morning of March 1 found upward of two
hundred thousand people assembled in the streets
of Seoul. The whole city was tense with anxiety,
mingled with some vague expectancy. In the mean-
time thirty-three men, representing all religions,
sects, and classes, had drawn up and signed what was
virtually a declaration -of independence. These men
thoroughly believed that President Wilson's declara-
tion that the civilized world was determined hence-
forth to protect the rights of weaker nations pro-
ted the end of Korea's vassaldom. "A new era,"

158 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

they declared, "wakes before our eyes ; the old world
of force is gone, and the new world of righteousness
and truth is here." As an English writer, Mr. J.
O. F. Bland, has put it, "Of practical politics, of the
great world beyond the Hermit Kingdom, these sim-
ple old-world scholars and guileless enthusiasts knew
little or nothing; they only knew that under the rule
of Japan they were humiliated and unhappy, and
that after the agony of ten years of foreign oppres-
sion the clarion call had sounded which was to give
them unfettered liberty." Copies of the proclama-
tion, together with instructions as to what was ex-
pected of the people, were sent to local leaders all
over Korea through the aid of little school-girls, who
hid the incriminating documents in their capacious
sleeves and trudged from town to town, bearing the
message of freedom.

Shortly before noon on March 1 twenty-nine of
the thirty-three signers of the declaration met in the
Tai-wha Kwan, where the independence of Korea
had been signed away nearly a decade before. It is
said that all the higher officials of the Japanese admin-
istration had been invited to attend the meeting, but
that only one had come, the others having official
duties which took them elsewhere. After the mo-
mentous document had been read to the assemblage
a messenger was despatched to communicate its con-
tents to the great crowd which had gathered in Pa-
goda Park. Then, after drinking success to the

KOREA 159

movement thus initiated, one of the signers went to
the telephone, called up the chief of police, told him
what they had done, and informed him that they were
ready to go to prison. The suggestion was promptly
complied with.

The demonstration, taken as a whole, followed the
instructions of the leaders to the letter. The demon-
strators were unarmed, and among them were as
many old men and women as young people. For-
eigners who witnessed the affair told me that it was
one of the most curious and impressive sights they had
ever seen. The masses of white-clad people, pulsat-
ing with the new spirit of freedom, surged through the
streets in human billows, waving little Korean flags,
of which thousands had been distributed secretly,
singing the Korean national anthem, which is set
to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne," and shouting
"Manseit Mansei! Mansei! Ten thousand years
for Korea!" 1

So skilfully had the demonstration been planned
and executed that the authorities were taken com-
pletely by surprise. The Japanese secret service,
which had boasted that it had its fingers constantly on
the pulse of Korean public opinion, had been outwit-
ted and out-manoeuvered at every turn. Because of
the magnitude of the movement the police were help-

1 This sketch of the independence agitation has been drawn, in the
main, from Korean sources — "The Truth About Korea," by C W.
Kendall and 'The Rebirth of Korea," by Hugh Heung-wo Cynn— in
so far as they agree with the testimony of unprejudiced witnesses.

160 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

less, but as soon as the seriousness of the situation
was realized the troops were called out and the par-
aders were dispersed by force, hundreds being
wounded or trampled upon. By nightfall of "Inde-
pendence Day" the prisons of Korea were filled to
overflowing.

It was here, in my opinion, that the authorities were
guilty of a serious blunder. It must be patent to
every fair-minded person that they could not tolerate
disorders and revolutionary acts, however patrioti-
cally intended, and that in adopting stern measures
for their suppression they only did what all govern-
ments are likely to do under similar circumstances.
The question is whether, in view of the eminently
passive character of the demonstration, they chose the
wisest course. So long as there was no violence it
would have been the part of wisdom, it seems to me,
to have let the pent-up emotions of the people escape
through the safety-valve provided by the demonstra-
tion, instead of attempting forcibly to suppress them.
Much bloodshed might have been averted if the au-
thorities had possessed the psychology of one village
policeman, who permitted the people in his district
to celebrate for three days without molestation. Then
he told them that if they wanted independence they
should build up an army and navy ; this would require
much money, so they had better return to their work
and accumulate the wealth necessary to develop the
nation. They agreed with him that it was sound

DEVIL-POSTS OUTSIDE KOREAN VILLAGE TO KEEP AWAY EVIL SPIRITS

TRANSPORTING FODDER ON THE BACKS OF BULLS IN KOREA

ANCIENT KOREAN TEMPLE IN SEOUL

KOREA 161

advice and dispersed peaceably without any hum hav-
ing been done. 1

Notwithstanding official attempts to minimize the
extent and significance of the agitation, there seems to
be little doubt that it was a genuine national move-
ment. When I went to Korea I was quite prepared
to find certain classes of the population, particularly
the students and intellectuals and those having polit-
ical aspirations, permeated by the spirit of national-
ism. But I expected to find the farmers, who com-
pose the great mass of the people and are the back-
bone of the country, largely ignorant of and indif-
ferent to the new movement. I found, however, that
the emotions aroused — which might be described as
a new national consciousness — have gone deep and
broad into the lives of the people as a whole. When
Yi Sang-Chai, who has been called "the Tolstoy of
Korea/' was interrogated by a secret service man as
to who were the persons behind the movement, he
replied: "All the Korean people, from Fusan to the
Ever White Mountains. They are all in it. They
are the committee back of the agitation/ 9

Now it is not my intention to enter into any de-
tailed account or discussion of the excesses which
marked the suppression of the independence move-
ment. That the Japanese police and gendarmes were
guilty of many brutalities and some horrible reprisals
is not open to question. Not only have they been

ia What Shall I Think of Japan?" by George Gfeason.

162 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

confirmed by a host of reputable witnesses, foreigners
as well as natives, but the Japanese Government it-
self has virtually admitted them by punishing the
perpetrators. In certain of the provincial towns, if
the testimony of trustworthy witnesses is to be be-
lieved, unarmed and unresisting Koreans, both men
and women, were bayoneted or shot down in cold
blood. Houses were looted and burned. In order
to extort confessions or to obtain evidence, many of
the prisoners were subjected to torture. Women and
young girls were stripped, beaten, and subjected to
shameful indignities, though I might add that I found
no evidence of a single case of assault on Korean
women by Japanese police or soldiers. Yet, brutal
and cruel though they undeniably were, that is no
excuse for the grossly exaggerated accounts that have
been spread broadcast. For example, Mr. C. W.
Kendall in "The Truth About Korea" is authority
for the statement that in the first three months of the
agitation over 50,000 Koreans were killed or wounded.
In December, 1919, The World Outlook published
a report placing the killed at between 80,000 and 40,-
000. According to official reports, 681 Koreans were
killed and 1409 wounded. This is perhaps an under-
statement, but none of the foreigners with whom I
discussed the question when I was in Korea estimated
the killed at over one thousand.

Mr. George Gleason, who certainly cannot be ac-
cused of any anti- Japanese leanings, has summed up

KOREA 168

the results of the rising as follows, drawing his figures,
it is to be assumed, from official reports :

"Of the 2500 village districts in Korea, there were
uprisings in 577, the total number of demonstrations
being 779, with demonstrators numbering 452,868.
[Heaven only knows how such exact figures were ob-
tained !] Riots took place in 286 places. The police
and gendarmes numbered 8000 Koreans and 6000
Japanese located in 1800 villages. There were, be-
sides these, about 25,000 Japanese soldiers, all of
whom at one time were engaged in suppressing the
demonstrations. In 185 places guns were fired at
the demonstrators ; 681 Koreans were killed and 1409
wounded. Nine Japanese policemen were killed and
186 wounded. In 87 places public buildings were
destroyed and in 88 places private houses were burned.
Up to July 20, 1919, 28,984 Koreans were arrested.
While there is some duplication in the reports, the fol-
lowing treatment was given those arrested : 7111 were
set free without trial; 8998 were committed to trial;
5156 were sent to prison; 10,592 were flogged and
released. In only two out of the nearly 600 villages
where demonstrations took place did the Koreans use
firearms. That such a peaceful movement resulted
in the killing and wounding of 2000, the arrest of 29,-
000, and the flogging of 10,000 is a fact which calls
for meditation more than for comment. No Japanese
can be surprised at the widespread wave of protest."

In considering the methods which the Japanese

164 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

authorities used in suppressing the independence
movement, it should be kept in mind that they were
by no means indicative of the sentiments of the Japa-
nese people as a whole, who, on the contrary, disap-
proved and deplored them. They were indicative
of the sentiment of only a small, though powerful,
section of the Japanese people — the military party.
These men, brought up in the stern school of the
soldier, steeped in military traditions, believing in
inflexible discipline and unquestioning obedience to
authority as a Mohammedan believes in the Koran,
took the position that Korea and the Koreans were
the absolute property of Japan, that the subjugation
and Japanization of the Koreans was a military neces-
sity, and that the independence movement constituted
a defiance of the imperial power which must be
stamped out with fire and sword. I am not excusing
the Japanese, mind you, when I remind my readers of
the massacre ordered by the British general, Dwyer,
at Amritsar ; of Captain-General Weyler's treatment
of the Cubans; of the behavior of the "Black and
Tans" in Ireland ; of the excesses perpetrated by the
Greeks in Albania and Asia Minor. The Japanese
excesses in Korea should not be condoned because
other people have committed them. I am merely
calling attention to the fact that history has repeat-
edly shown that enlightened and humane nations have
frequently been disgraced by the action of their mili-
tary men.

KOREA 165

It is due to historical accuracy and to the Japa-
nese army to emphasize the fact that three bodies
of men have been sent by the Japanese Government
to Korea to restore order. One is the regular army.
Another is the gendarmerie — a police force organized
on military lines. The third is the police, or rather,
those contingents of police recruited in Japan. These
forces are distinct and should not be confused. Nor
should their deeds. In organization, discipline, tem-
per, and ideals the police and gendarmerie are sev-
eial degrees removed from the regular army. Unlike
the regular army, their discipline, training, and tem-
per could not withstand the trials and temptations to
which they were subjected in Korea. Neither their
discipline nor methods could compare with army dis-
cipline, so it is scarcely a matter for surprise that at
certain times and places they broke loose — that they
burned, destroyed, killed, tortured, intimidated. In
the vast majority of cases the excesses in Korea were
committed by police and gendarmes ; not by Japanese
soldiers.

Now here is the most significant and discouraging
feature of the whole deplorable business. When the
news of what had happened in the peninsula became
known in Japan there was no public, and very little
political, reaction. The wave of indignation which
swept England when the conduct of the "Black and
Tans" in Ireland became known, had no parallel in
Japan. Scarcely more than a ripple disturbed the

166 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

political waters, while the public remained as pro-
foundly apathetic as though the excesses had occurred
in Central Africa instead of in a province of the em-
pire, six score miles away. It is true that the Japa-
nese Constitutional Party despatched an independ-
ent investigator to Korea to examine the situation on
the spot, and that his report ascribed the movement to
discriminatory treatment of the Koreans, complicated
and impracticable administrative measures, and ex-
treme oppression, but I have the feeling that in this
the constitutionalists were inspired by a desire to
embarrass the government as much as by humani-
tarian motives. It is also true that the resident-gen-
eral, Count Hasegawa, the director of political af-
fairs, Mr. Yamagata, and the chief of gendarmerie
were recalled, though the government "saved the
face" of the militarists by making General Hasegawa
a field-marshal. There is no doubt that the govern-
ment was gravely concerned over the excesses, though
not so much on moral grounds as because of its fear
of the effect oij. Western opinion. And this concern
was shared by a small group of men who had had
long associations with Western life and were familiar
with Western thought. In discussing the excesses
some months later with Viscount Kaneko, who is a
graduate of Harvard and one of the most advanced
Japanese statesmen, he said with great earnestness:
"Unfortunately they are only too true. I do not pre-
tend to deny them ; I can only deplore them, the more

KOREA 167

so because they were committed by my own people.
I only hope that they will not be interpreted abroad
as indicative of the real attitude of the Japanese peo-
ple toward the Koreans." I do not wish to do the
Japanese Government or people an injustice, but in
my opinion the reforms which were promptly insti-
tuted in Korea were inspired not by public opinion in
Japan, but almost wholly by public opinion outside
of Japan. For the Peace Conference was then sit-
ting in Paris, and Japan, with enormous interests at
stake in the ante-bellum settlements, could ill afford
to have her case prejudiced by criticism of her con-
duct in Korea.

The government thus found itself in a difficult and
trying situation. Premier Hara was quick to recog-
nize that something must be done, and done at once,
to convince America and the European nations that
Japan was sincere in her desire to ameliorate condi-
tions in the peninsula. But he likewise realized that
he could not afford to do anything which would arouse
the animosity of the military party. He steered a
middle course, therefore, by designating Admiral
Baron Saito, a retired naval officer, as the new gov-
ernor-general of Korea, this appointment being in the
nature of a compromise between the militarists, who
demanded that the independence movement be sup-
pressed with an iron hand, and those statesmen of
broader vision, who, recognizing the danger of flout-
ing foreign opinion, insisted on a new deal for the

168 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

Koreans. I might add, parenthetically, that as a
captain in command of a Japanese warship Baron
Saito was present when the American squadron under
Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay,
and that he unreservedly sided with the American
commodore when the commander of a German war-
ship attempted to interfere in behalf of the Spaniards.
The portfolio of political affairs in Baron Saito's cabi-
net is held by Dr. Kentaro Midzuno, formerly minister
of the interior of Japan, an enlightened and progres-
sive statesman of the highest type. Though I believe
that Baron Saito's administration has the best interests
of the Koreans genuinely at heart, its freedom of ac-
tion has been hampered by the military party. Men
like Baron Saito and Dr. Midzuno could and would
accomplish far-reaching reforms in Korea if they were
not discouraged in their efforts by the apathetic state
of public opinion at home.

I had a long conference with Baron Saito when
I was in Seoul. He spoke fair English and answered
my queries as to Japan's future course in Korea with
every appearance of candor. He freely admitted
that many mistakes had been made; he deplored the
harshness which had characterized the preceding ad-
ministration ; and he expressed his intention of mak-
ing Japanese rule in Korea of real benefit to the
Koreans, who, he felt, had never been given a fair
chance. He impressed me as being sincere, deeply in
earnest, and possessed of a large measure of sym-

KOREA 169

pathy for the Koreans, and this despite the fact that
upon the very day of his arrival in Seoul to take over
his new duties, before he had an opportunity to make
his policy known, an attempt was made by a Korean
to assassinate him.

More than two years have passed since the Im-
perial Rescript of August 20, 1919, in which the
emperor called upon his officials "to rush reforms,"
which was followed by Premier Hara's proclamation
announcing that "it is the government's fixed deter-
mination to forward the progress of the country in
order that all differences between Korea and Japan
proper in matters of education, industry, and the
civil service may be finally obliterated. ... It is the
ultimate purpose of the Japanese Government in due
course to treat Korea as in all respects on the same
footing with Japan proper." In that period a credit-
able number of reforms have been effected. The
objectionable gendarmerie system has largely been
done away with and the police system, improved,
enlarged, and under the direct control of the civil
instead of the military authorities, has been substi-
tuted. The much criticized custom of flogging was
definitely abolished on April 1, 1920 — about the time,
incidentally, that American newspapers were carry-
ing reports of the movement to abolish the public

170 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

flogging of women in Georgia. The prisons have
been enlarged and improved. New school regulations
have been adopted, lengthening the courses of study,
granting wider options in the curricula, permitting
religious instruction in private schools, and relaxing
the requirements as to the use of the Japanese lan-
guage in certain subjects. The regulations governing
religious activities have been revised, simplifying the
requirements as to reports concerning the opening of
new churches, the number of adherents, and the like.
The so-called "Company Law," restricting the estab-
lishment of commercial companies, has been repealed.
Newspapers in the Korean language, owned and
edited by Koreans, have again appeared, and freedom
of the press, at least in some degree, has been re-
stored, though the newspapers are still frequently
suppressed by the authorities. The spies and in-
formers who so long swarmed in the peninsula have
largely disappeared. The salaries of Japanese and
Koreans in government employ have been equalized
in the various grades. Koreans have been appointed
to high posts in the government, including those of
provincial governor, judge, and public procurator*
The custom of wearing swords by civil officials has
been abolished. The Advisory Council, composed of
Korean statesmen, which had fallen into innocuous
desuetude, has been revived, it being convened regu-
larly once a week, and by the infusion of new blood
has been made more representative of all classes of

KOREA 171

Korean opinion— ^including the anti-Japanese — thus
providing at least the germ of representative govern-
ment in Korea. Though admittedly much remains to
be done, this, as most fair-minded persons will admit,
is a creditable showing for two years.

The Korean leaders with whom I discussed the
situation, though guarded in their comments, were
dissatisfied — as might have been expected — with the
extent of the reforms and frankly skeptical of Japa-
nese sincerity. Their chief criticisms appeared to be
(1) that the new administration is supporting the
leaders of the old, corrupt, discredited regime, rather
than the leaders of the progressive party; (2) that it
is keeping the Korean standard of education fully
two years behind that of Japan; (8) that the police
still have altogether too much authority, particularly
in the rural districts, where an ignorant constable is
often vested with almost autocratic powers; (4) that
the treatment of prisoners is not yet in accordance
with enlightened standards, those charged with polit-
ical offenses being confined in overcrowded cells and
permitted insufficient exercise.

Though I am myself convinced that substantial
progress is really being made, and though I am satis-
fied of the sincerity of the new administration, it is
my opinion that no program of reform can be ex-
pected in the immediate future that will satisfy a
large section of the Korean people and their friends.
They expect and will continue to demand more than

172 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

the Japanese Government will feel able to grant. A
complete reversal of Japanese policy in Korea will
come only when military autocracy definitely has been
subordinated to democracy in Japan itself. It should
be remembered that the late Premier Hara was in
none too strong a position, for the forces of reaction,
as personified by the militarists, had too much power
for him to do as he would perhaps have liked to do
if left to his own devices. And if the prime minister
of the empire is not his own master in this respect,
the governor-general of Korea is still less so.

Notwithstanding the reforms, the independence
movement, though at the moment in abeyance, has by
no means dissolved, being carried steadily forward
despite the vigilance of the police. I was given to
understand that there are two factions among the
Korean leaders; one which favors advancing their
cause by forcible methods, the other favoring peace-
able means, and that the latter is at present in control
of the situation. The prevailing belief in Korea is
that the continuance in power of the peace party will
largely depend upon the sincerity and energy dis-
played by the new administration in prosecuting the
promised reforms. "All that is now asked," a well-
informed foreign official in Seoul told me, "is that the
Korean people be treated with respect, be given jus-
tice, and be permitted to develop along various lines/ 9
Should the promises of the government and the ex-
pectations of the people remain unfulfilled, however,

KOREA 178

there is every likelihood of an outbreak of a more
serious nature than has yet occurred. For the sake
of peace in the peninsula it is sincerely to be hoped
that the new administration will prove itself so en-
lightened that the peace party may remain in the
ascendant. I was told by a foreign official in whom I
have confidence that the leaders of the secret organiza-
tion which has been directing the independence move-
ment were rapidly becoming convinced of the futility
of open resistance on the part of the Koreans at
present, and were counseling the people to attend to
their business, and the students to their studies, until
such time as they are better able to make their
strength felt. If that is true — and it is borne out by
the fact that the student registration for last year
(1921) was unprecedented — it explains the present
lull and is an indication of what may be expected in
the future, provided the reforms proceed at a reason-
able pace. If, on the other hand, the Japanese Gov-
ernment fails to keep its promises, if it makes the
blunder of returning to the old, short-sighted policy
of repression and oppression, then I fear that the next
chapter in Korea's troubled history will be written in
blood.

VI

No account of existing conditions in Korea would
be complete without at least passing reference to the
work and influence of the missionaries, of whom there

174 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

are in the peninsula at present nearly five hundred,
about three quarters of these being Americans. They,
with their native assistants, shepherd churches which
have not far from 100,000 regular members, these
native Christians constituting the most enlightened
and reputable element of the indigenous population.
It has long been the fashion for a certain brand of tour-
ist to sneer at the missionary. Usually these are per-
sons who have never traveled beyond the treaty ports,
whose knowledge of Oriental conditions is largely
confined to irresponsible gossip picked up on hotel
verandas or over hotel bars in Yokohama and Hong
Kong and Shanghai. I imagine that most thoughtful
people will prefer to accept the testimony of such a
man as Mr. Thomas W. Lamont, who said, in speak-
ing of the American missionaries in China, that they
are giving their lives to develop a people into a
nation. And that is even truer of the American mis-
sionaries in Korea. For they are something more
than prosely tizers ; they are educators, sanitary ex-
perts, agricultural advisers, physicians, statesmen.
The statistics of their conversions by no means repre-
sent the sum total of their activities or give an ade-
quate idea of the enormous service they are perform-
ing in carrying civilization, as well as Christianity,
into the world's dark corners.

Though there is no disguising the fact that the
independence movement in Korea owed its inspiration
originally to the influence and teaching of American

KOREA 175

missionaries, the attitude of the missionary body has
been, as a whole, formally correct. When the reform
program was first announced the attitude of the mis-
sionary body in Korea was distinctly one of benevo-
lent neutrality, but as time passed and the reforms
were slow in coming, while many of the worst abuses
of the old regime remained, this attitude was largely
replaced by one of skepticism and a neutrality con-
fined to speech and action alone — and in some cases
not to speech. But there is no word of truth in the
charges made in certain sections of the Japanese press
that the disorders in Korea were instigated by the
missionaries. The falsity of such assertions is con-
vincingly shown by an interview with Mr. Yamagata,
formerly director of political affairs in Korea, which
appeared in The Japanese Advertiser: "No mission-
ary in Korea, directly or indirectly, took part in the
Korean demonstrations, although it is quite probable
that some missionaries have shown their sympathy
with the Koreans." Everything considered, the
American missionaries have succeeded to a remark-
able degree in maintaining a discreet and neutral
attitude in a most difficult situation, the factors of
which have tended to draw their hearts and their
heads in opposite directions.

I cannot let pass this opportunity to deprecate and
deplore the short-sighted and injudicious methods
which the Japanese authorities are using in an
attempt to convince foreign visitors to Korea of the

176 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

justice of their policy and to prejudice them against
the Koreans. Indeed, foreign travelers in the penin-
sula have been misinformed and blinded by a propa-
ganda against the Koreans, a manipulation of the
press, which has seldom been equaled in audacity of un-
truth and dexterity of misrepresentation. Piled high
on the desks of the admirably run Japanese hotels in
Seoul, Fusan, and Mukden are pamphlets, written by
an American, Frank Herron Smith, in which the
Koreans are painted in the most unflattering colors,
while in the same breath the author not only defends
Japan's policy but lauds it to the skies. Another
American, T. Philip Terry, has apparently attempted
to earn Japanese gratitude by the savage and intem-
perate attacks on the Koreans, in which he has ex-
hausted the unflattering adjectives in his vocabulary,
which he has introduced into his otherwise admirable
guide-book to the Japanese Empire. The tone of
The Seoul Press, a daily newspaper in English owned
and edited by Japanese, is far more temperate and
sympathetic than the writings of these Americans.
The Koreans are now as much subjects of the em-
peror as the Japanese themselves, and as deserving of
consideration. By lending its approval to such
attacks on a section of its people the government is as
guilty of bad judgment as their American authors
are of bad taste. It is a form of propaganda which
is discreditable to those who are responsible for it and
should be discontinued forthwith.

KOREA 177

vn

I have now sketched for you the conditions which
prevailed in Korea before the Japanese came and
those which obtain there to-day. What the future of
the peninsula is to be depends wholly upon whether
the Koreans and the Japanese adopt an attitude of
mutual sympathy and understanding. Were Japan
to evacuate the country now, or in the near future —
as there is not the slightest prospect of her doing —
she would leave it under conditions which would soon
result in chaos, and the good that she has done would
be largely lost. The extensive schemes for agricul-
tural and industrial development upon which she has
entered, and upon which the prosperity of the penin-
sula largely depends, could never be financed by an
independent Korea, and the same is true of her plans
for improving the means of communication, which are
at the bottom of all the problems of economic devel'
opment in Korea.

However critical we may be of the methods by
which it was accomplished, the annexation of Korea
seems to me to have been justified. For the fact must
not be lost sight of that the country was doomed to
become either Japanese or Russian. The Japanese
occupied it to forestall a Russian occupation, which
would have menaced their independence as a nation.

178 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

And they have remained in the peninsula for reasons
similar to those which, in the opinions of reasonable
men, justify Great Britain in retaining control of
Egypt and of Ireland.

The Koreans insist that they are themselves per-
fectly capable of establishing and maintaining a just
and stable government. But their ability to do this
is, I believe, open to grave question. Certainly there
is nothing in the twenty centuries, of their history as
an independent nation to justify such confidence, for
the old government of Korea was perhaps the worst
on which the sun ever shone. Though they are now
making encouraging progress, it is being made under
Japanese guidance and tuition. The leaders of the
independence movement are, for the most part, young
men, students, intellectuals, idealists, who, no matter
how able individually, are wholly without experience
in practical government. To turn a nation of seven-
teen millions of ignorant, simple-minded people over
to their guidance would be to invite disaster.

Mind you, I do not think that the Japanese admin-
istration of Korea has been all, or nearly all, that it
should have been. I cannot agree with Dr. Hershey,
who asserts that "the government of Chosen must be
pronounced a great success," any more than I can
agree with Mr. Kendall, who claims that "the nine
years following the egregious annexation has been
one of the most shameful pages in the history of the
Japanese Empire/ 9 The truth lies somewhere be-

KOREA 179

tween these extremes. As a matter of fact, the Japa-
nese officials have worked hard and in many instances
effectively for the amelioration of the Korean people
and the improvement of Korean conditions, but their
method has been lacking in tact, sympathy, and
understanding. But criticism of Japan's stern mili-
taristic policy and of the harsh methods she has per-
mitted in its execution should not blind us to her
integrity, her large administrative ability, and to the
energy she has displayed in carrying out material
reforms. From personal observation on the spot, I
am convinced that the general condition of the Korean
peasantry is appreciably higher than it ever was, or
could have been, under Korean administration. This
is not to be interpreted as meaning that I do not
sympathize with the Koreans, for I do. They have
been the victims of cruelty, injustice, and oppression.
Nor would they be worthy of respect if they did not
prefer to rule themselves. But I can also sympathize
with Japan. During one of the most trying periods
in the world's history — disliked, distrusted, and op-
posed by Koreans, Chinese, Russians, and most of
the foreigners living in the Far East — she has jerked
a nation out of the depths of poverty, degradation,
and despair, as though by its collar, set it on its feet,
and is teaching it to "play the game." And, as Count
Terauchi once remarked, "It is no easy task to uplift
a decayed people."
Viewing the question from an unbiased standpoint,

180 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

I believe that the balance inclines heavily in favor of
Japan. I will go further than that and assert that
Korea could suffer no greater calamity than to have
Japan go. Not that there is the slightest probability
of her doing so, for the unrest in China, combined
with the uncertainty in Russia, is likely to cause her
to tighten, rather than relax her grip on the peninsula.
For, when all is said and done, Korea is the key to
the whole Far Eastern situation. Upon her control
of it depends Japan's entire scheme for the economic
penetration of Siberia, Manchuria, and China. For
her to withdraw from Korea would be tantamount
to leaving the gateway to these great, rich markets
unguarded, and that, I am convinced, she will never
do. The sooner the Koreans realize that Japan's
determination to remain in the peninsula is adaman-
tine, and the sooner the Japanese realize that the
Koreans will resist further attempts at forcible dena-
tionalization to the bitter end, the better it will be for
both peoples. If the Japanese will adopt a concilia-
tory and unselfish policy toward the Koreans with a
view to granting them a very large measure of
autonomy as soon as they are prepared for it, and if
the Koreans, on their part, will drop their demands
for complete independence, which it is obviously im-
possible for Japan to accede to, and set to work to fit
themselves for self-government under the empire, it
will set forward the hands of progress in the Farther
East and there will no longer be a Korean Question.

PART III

CHINA

WE have witnessed one of the most brazen ex-
amples of international brigandage in the
history of the world. In less than four-score years
we have seen China, a country as large as Europe,
with a civilization extending back into the mists of
antiquity, rifled of territory and resources by a hand-
ful of predatory nations with as little compunction as
a gang of lawless boys would raid a farmer's orchard.
We have seen this vast, rich, peaceable, defenceless
country bullied, intimidated, reduced to a state of
virtual vassalage, and parceled out in spheres of in-
fluence, leases obtained under duress, and enforced
concessions by methods which, in their effrontery and
callousness, are reminiscent of the freebooters of the
Spanish Main. The story of the pillage of China is
saturated with intrigue and corruption, deceit and
trickery, selfishness and greed. It forms one of the
most shameful and depressing chapters in the history
of our times and makes a mockery of Europe's sancti-
monious championship of justice and fair-dealing.

181

182 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

The bewilderment and discouragement which
usually reward those foreigners who attempt to
acquire a* clear-cut understanding of the Chinese
situation are primarily due, in my opinion, to their
failure to comprehend the peculiar geographic divi-
sions of the country and the ethnologic distinctions
of its inhabitants. Opening the atlas to the map of
Asia, they see an enormous wedge-shaped territory,
nearly one third larger than the United States, driven
so deeply into the continent that its point impinges
on the Afghan border. Because this wedge is tinted
yellow and labeled "China/ 9 they naturally assume
that it is a compact nation, like Italy or France, and
that its three hundred million inhabitants are one
homogeneous race, like the Italians or the French.
Strictly speaking, however, the term "China" is ap-
plicable only to a single section of this vast territory,
and the term "Chinese" only to the natives of that
section.

The territory which comprised the Chinese Em-
pire, and which was inherited, at least in theory, by
the Chinese Republic, consists of five 1 great racio-
political divisions : Manchuria in the northeast, Mon-
golia in the north, Sinkiang 2 in the west, Tibet in
the southwest, and China proper in the southeast.
Though the design adopted by the republic for its

*The Chinese assert that the republic consists of only four political
divisions, China, Mongolia, Sinkiang and Tibet, claiming that Manchuria
should be considered a part of China proper.

"Sinkiang, or the New Dominion, consists of Kulja, Kashgaria, and
Chinese Turkestan.

CHINA 188

new flag, on which the old yellow dragon has been
replaced by five latitudinal stripes — crimson, yellow,
blue, white, and black — to denote the five races —
Mongol, Chinese, Manchu, Turki, 1 and Tibetan —
which comprise the Chinese people, might be inter-
preted as symbolic of national solidarity, the very re-
verse is the truth, for these five divisions, as a matter
of fact, are bound together by the loosest and weakest
of ties. This lack of homogeneity is due to the fact
that the various elements of the population have little
in common, being wholly distinct in origin, history,
characteristics, traditions, and language. For ex-
ample, the speech of a Tibetan is as unintelligible to
a Mongol, a Manchu, or a Chinese as Gaelic is to an
Englishman.

Now it should be clearly understood that of these
five great divisions three — Mongolia, Sinkiang, and
Tibet — are little more than outlying dependencies
over which the central government exercises the
vaguest and most shadowy control. Tibet, for in-
stance, is nominally a territory of the Chinese Re-
public, yet the Peking government may not appoint
or dismiss a single Tibetan official without the sanc-
tion of the government of British India. In fact,
Tibet may be said to be far more under the rule of
Calcutta than of Peking. The vast and ill-defined
tract of country known as Mongolia, a region five
times the size of Texas, is likewise considered a part

1 The Turkifl are the Mohammedan inhabitants of Sinkiang.

184 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

of the republic, yet the central government has seen
fit to raise a tariff wall between this border territory
and the homeland by imposing a duty of ten per cent,
ad valorem on goods imported from Mongolia into
China, or vice versa, whereas Mongolian products
are permitted to enter Russian territory duty free.

Though the three outlying dependencies have a
combined area of nearly two and one half million
square miles, or about two thirds of the total area of
the republic, they are very sparsely settled, their in-
habitants comprising not more than seven per cent, of
the total population. They are, moreover, remotely
situated and are entirely destitute of modern means
of communication, being accessible only by the
ancient caravan routes. Hence, notwithstanding
their enormous extent and their immense wealth in
undeveloped resources, Mongolia, Sinkiang, and
Tibet play no greater part in Chinese politics than
Alaska, Porto Rico, and the Philippines play in
American politics, if as much. But, politically and
economically unimportant though they are at present,
I would stake my life that these remote and little-
known regions will be great countries some day.

Manchuria, owing to its greater population (about
twenty millions), its extensive railway system, and
its strategic position athwart the routes from Siberia
and Korea to China proper, has a status quite dif-
ferent from that of the dependencies just mentioned.
Though most foreign authorities regard Manchuria

CHINA 185

as an outlying territory of the republic, the Chinese
themselves — for reasons of political expediency, I
imagine — assert that its correct designation is not
"Manchuria," which is not a Chinese term, but "The
Three Eastern Provinces/' 1 and that it forms an
integral part of China proper. This region is now
colonized almost entirely by immigrants from the
northern provinces of China and the immigration
continues steadily by road and s$a. As a result, the
Manchu population has been almost completely ab-
sorbed by the Chinese, a few scattered Manchu com-
munities alone remaining. Manchuria's position as
a debated borderland, its unsettled political condi-
tion, the prevalence of brigandage, the great tide of
immigration, the high-handed and often lawless
methods pursued both by the local governors and the
Japanese military authorities — all these find striking
parallels in the conditions which prevailed along the
Rio Grande during the first half of the nineteenth
century, when Texas was a bone of contention be-
tween Mexico and the United States.

When all is said and done, the only one of the five
divisions of the republic that counts politically is
China proper. This is the great apple-shaped ter-
ritory in the southeast, consisting of the eighteen
provinces — Chihli, Shansi, Shantung, Kangsi, Shensi,
Honan, Anhwei, Kiangsu, Szechwan, Hupeh, Che-

1 Hie region commonly referred to as Manchuria consists of the prov-
inces of Fengtien, Kirin, and Heilungchiang.

186 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

kiang, Kwaichow, Hunan, Kiangsi, Fukien, Yunnan,
Kwangsi, and Kwantung — which bulges out, like a
huge bay-window, into the China Sea. Though China
comprises only about one third of the country's total
area, it contains nearly nine tenths of the total popu-
lation, together with virtually the whole of the sea-
board and nearly all of the larger cities, which ex-
plains its dominancy in national affairs.

As I have already pointed out, the inhabitants of
the various divisions of the republic speak entirely
different tongues. Hence, intercommunication is
slow and uncertain. And history has repeatedly
shown that a country handicapped by inadequate
means of communication rarely is well governed. The
difficulty of welding these various races into a homo-
geneous nation is still further increased by the fact
that even in China proper we find not one spoken
language, but a number of dialects, all clearly of a
common stock, yet differing from one another as
widely as the various Romance languages of Europe
— say, French, Spanish, and Italian. It is a common
occurrence, indeed, when a man from Chihli meets a
man from Kwantung for them to fall back on Pidgin
English as a medium of communication. In the
South, Cantonese is generally spoken on the coast
and Hakka in the interior. Proceeding northward,
we find in succession the Swatow, Foochow, Wen-
chow, and Ningpo dialects. Still farther north we
come into the range of the great dialect popularly

CHINA 187

known as Mandarin, which sweeps around behind the
narrow coastal strip where the various dialects just,
mentioned are spoken and dominates a hinterland
constituting nearly four fifths of China proper. Of
all these tongues, Mandarin is by far the most im-
portant. Not only can it claim to be the native speech
of the majority of Chinese, but it is the recognized
medium of oral communication between all Chinese
officials, even when they come from the same part of
the country and speak the same patois. In the de-
pendencies, though the officials usually are familiar
with Mandarin, the natives speak only their own out-
landish tongues. Hence, a Chinaman traveling in
Mongolia, Sinkiang, or Tibet has almost as much diffi-
culty in making himself understood as would a Euro-
pean, while the services of interpreters are frequently
required at official conclaves in Peking.

By glancing at the map you will see that China
proper is bisected latitudinally by Asia's greatest
river, the three-thousand-mile-long Yangtze. It
might naturally be supposed that this mighty water-
way would form the dividing line between "the
North" and "the South" — a sort of Chinese Mason
and Dixon's line, as it were — but this is not the case.
The real line of demarcation is ethnologic rather than
geographic. "The North," speaking broadly, may
be said to embrace those regions inhabited by the
descendants of those Mongol-Tartar tribes who set*
tied in the basin of the Yellow River in the dim dawn

188 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

of history, at least forty centuries ago, and who, as
the years passed, gradually spread in all directions,
forming the race known, to ethnologists as the "conti-
nental" Chinese. "The South," on the other hand,
consists of those districts along the Chinese littoral,
from the frontiers of Indo-China nearly to the
Yangtze, together with their immediate hinterlands,
which were colonized by immigrants of Malay origin
early in the Christian era. Though these two races
have lived side by side, under the same rule, for close
on two thousand years, they have never become com-
pletely amalgamated, still being distinguished by
many of their ancient characteristics. The "conti-
nental" Chinese, for example, speak the Mandarin
tongue, while the "coastal" Chinese cling to the va-
rious dialects spoken along the littoral. Thus it will
be seen that the existing differences between the
North and the South are not wholly political. Racial
characteristics also enter into the question. Surely
it is no matter for surprise that the children of those
fierce Tartar tribesmen who swept out of Inner Asia
should not always see eye to eye with the descendants
of those daring sea-rovers who came sailing up in
their fragile prahus from the islands and jungles of
Malaysia.

ii

The last of the thirty-odd dynasties that ruled
China was the Ta Tsing ("Great Bright") or

CAMELS UNDER THE WALLS OP PEKING-

THE TARTAR WALL AND A PORTION OP THE TARTAR CITY IK PEKING

CHINA 189

Manchu, whose fierce Tartar chieftains began to make
their power felt in Manchuria about the beginning
of the sixteenth century, when the Mings, a Chinese
house, sat on the Dragon Throne. Early in the fol-
lowing century the Ming emperors appealed to the
Manchus for aid in putting down a rebellion, where*
upon these men of the horse and the tent came riding
into China like a whirlwind, just as another Tartar
tribe, the Osmanlis, poured into Europe behind the
horse-tail standards. Once over the Great Wall,
they quickly secured victory for those who had called
upon them. But, recognizing at once the wealth of
the land and the weakness of its rulers, they decided
to remain. Establishing themselves in the rich and
populous provinces below the Wall, they quickly suc-
ceeded in making themselves masters of the country,
monopolizing the military and most of the civil offices
and revenues. In 1644 the Ming dynasty came to an
end and the Manchus assumed the reins of power.
Holding themselves aloof from the Chinese, whom
they regarded as an inferior race, they compelled
them to shave the fore-skull and to adopt the queue
as a mark of submission. But in time they too suc-
cumbed to luxury, their moral fiber disintegrated,
and they gradually lost their language and their cus-
toms, virtually being conquered by the people on
whom they had imposed their rule.

Centuries passed. The Chinese slowly yielded to
the spirit of progress, but the Manchus appeared for

190 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

the most part incapable of responding to the
exigencies of the modern world. Reformers and
thinking men began to realize that the continuance
in power of the Manchus boded disaster and spelled
the ultimate partition of the country by foreigners.
Young men educated abroad, on coming home, found
the situation intolerable. Every branch of the gov-
ernment was paralyzed by incompetence, injustice,
and corruption. And while the great mass of Chinese
toiled and starved, thousands of indolent Manchu
officials battened on the bounty that flowed from the
Dragon Throne. The death in 1908 of the feeble-
minded young emperor, shortly followed by that of
the empress dowager, "the old Buddha/ 9 and the ap-
pointment of Prince Chun, a reactionary of the reac-
tionaries, as regent for the infant named to fill the
throne, hastened the inevitable. Though the govern-
ment at Peking, reading the signs of the times,
reluctantly promised a modern constitution and a
representative government, it postponed the promul-
gation of the one and the convocation of the other,
thereby irritating the discontented elements and pro-
voking open rebellion.

Now appeared a leader, a Cantonese named Dr.
Sun Yat-sen, a Christian, a man of science, and a
physician. Educated in the British colony of Hong
Kong, converted to Christianity in Honolulu, long
a resident in San Francisco and London, he is one of
the most picturesque and interesting figures ever

CHINA 191

produced in the East, The story of his life would
provide material for a dozen novels. Unsuccessful
in his attempts to enter official life, he turned against
the government, being compelled to flee from China
while still a young man because of his seditious
activities. Establishing himself in London, he quickly
became the leading spirit in a revolutionary junta
which aimed to rid China of Manchu rule. Brought
to a tardy realization of the rapidity with which
the movement led by Sun Yat-sen was spreading, the
court at Peking offered a reward of fifty thousand
dollars for his death or capture. His escapes from
assassination partook of the miraculous. While stay-
ing in London he was kidnapped by agents of the
imperial government and conveyed to the Chinese
Legation, preparatory to smuggling him aboard a
ship bound for China. Had not the British Govern-
ment insisted on his release, he would have met his
end beneath the sword of a Manchu executioner, and
the revolutionary movement might well have perished
with him.

In the North the man of destiny was Yuan Shih-
kai, a pupil of and a worthy successor to that great
statesman, Li Hung-chang. A native of Honan, a
mandarin, and a devout Confucian, he had served in
turn as Chinese Resident in Korea, as Viceroy of the
metropolitan district of Chihli, in which Peking is
situated, as head of the Waiwupu, or foreign office,
and, at the very end of the Manchu reign, as prime

192 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

minister of the empire. A past-master in all the arts
of mandarin intrigue, an expert in opportunism, an
adherent of the corrupt traditions which have char-
acterized the government of China for centuries, a
staunch supporter of the imperial dynasty, he was
nevertheless sufficiently shrewd and far-sighted to
realize that the Manchu government as it had hitherto
existed, incompetent and rotten to the core, could
not endure.

Thus the country became divided into two camps:
the party of the North, composed in the main of reac-
tionary office-holders and militarists, some of whom
were foreign-trained, headed by Yuan Shih-kai ; and
the party of the South, consisting of students, intel-
lectuals, men of progressive tendencies, many of
whom had been educated abroad, under the leader-
ship of Sun Yat-sen. It was autocracy versus de-
mocracy, the "stand-patters" against the progres-
sives, the old order of things as opposed to the new.

By 1910 the revolutionary movement, starting in
Canton and Hunan, had spread over all of the south-
ern provinces. The men of the reorganized army,
well armed and ably led, had early thrown in their
lot with the insurgents, and against them the troops
of the imperial household could make little headway.
There was desultory fighting throughout 1911, but
on the whole the revolution was comparatively blood-
less, far fewer lives being sacrificed than has been the
case in far less important political upheavals in West-

CHINA 198

era countries. Toward the close of 1911 the revolu-
tionary committee, which had been joined by Wu
Ting-fang, at one tiipe Chinese Minister to the
United States and one of the ablest men in China,
met at Nanking, organized a provisional government,
drafted a provisional constitution, and proclaimed a
republic. The presidency of the new government
was offered to Yuan Shih-kai, then prime minister
of the tottering* empire, but he declined, presumably
because he questioned the strength of the movement.
Sim Yat-sen, the father of the revolution, thereupon
consented to become the first provisional president
of the Chinese Republic. But when the monarchists
acknowledged the fait accompli, in February, 1912,
by announcing the abdication of the boy-emperor,
Suan-t'ung, Sun Yat-sen, anxious to bring to the
support of the republic the powerful northern ele-
ment represented by Yuan Shih-kai, offered to resign
the presidency in his favor. This time Yuan accepted
and was duly elected by the provisional government
the second provisional president of China.

The constitution drafted by the revolutionists in
Nanking provided for a provisional president and
vice-president, and a national council, which was to
exercise legislative powers until such time as a regular
parliament could be convened in accordance with laws
which the National Council was to enact. These laws
were enacted and a parliament, consisting of a Senate
and a House of Representatives, was duly elected

194 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

The members of the Lower House were to serve for
three years, the members of the Senate for six years,
one third retiring every two years. This parliament
was opened in Peking early in 1913, the world being
treated to the curious spectacle of elected representa-
tives from every province of China proper and from
the outlying dependencies, most of them wearing
frock-coats and top-hats, assembling in the ancient
stronghold of the Manchu power, within the walls of
the Forbidden City, for the purpose of giving China,
which for four thousand years had been the most
absolute of monarchies, a democratic form of govern-
ment.

Parliament, in addition to being the national legis-
lative body of the republic, was to draft and promul-
gate a permanent constitution and to elect the presi-
dent and vice-president, it being obviously unwise, in
view of the ignorance and political inexperience of the
great mass of the people, to have the head of the
nation elected by popular vote. A presidential elec-
tion law, dealing with the election and term of office
of the president, was accordingly passed, and on
October 6, 1913, at a joint session of the two Houses,
Yuan Shih-kai, already provisional president, was
elected as the first (regular) president of the Chinese
Republic. The vice-presidency went to Li Yuan-
hung, a graduate of the Peiyang Naval College, who
served on a cruiser during the Chino-Japanese War,
afterward entering the army, in which he rose to the

CHINA 195

grade of general, eventually being appointed Chief
of the General Staff.

The Parliament of 1913 was dominated by the
Kuo-min-tang, or People's Party, which was the
original revolutionary organization and which,
broadly speaking, represented the views of southern
China. As might have been expected, the new par-
liament was extremely jealous of its constitutional
rights, particularly the control of the cabinet and the
treasury. But, from the very beginning, President
Yuan Shih-Kai, steeped in the traditions of autocraey
and accustomed to exact unquestioning obedience to
his commands, refused to submit to parliamentary
dictation. He had been in office only a few weeks
before he defied parliament by placing his personal
friends, men of the North, in cabinet positions and
by contracting a loan without parliamentary authori-
zation. These high-handed and unconstitutional pro-
ceedings instantly aroused the violent opposition of
the Kuo-min-tang, whose members, led by Sun Yat-
sen, foresaw that, were they to be permitted to con-
tinue, the republican structure which they had so
painstakingly reared would quickly be undermined.
Sun Yat-sen and his adherents demanded govern-
ment by the people through their representatives in
parliament, while President Yuan Shih-kai soon made
it clear that he proposed to reign without a parliament
rather than be hampered by systematic opposition.
But the opposition, instead of declining, steadily

196 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

gained in strength, whereupon President Yuan de-
cided to rid himself of it for good and all. Accord-
ingly, on the night of November 4, 1913, he issued
orders for the immediate dissolution of the Kuo-min-
tang on the ground that it was a seditious organiza-
tion and that its members were rebels. It was as
though President Wilson had dissolved the Repub-
lican party and driven its members from the Senate
and the House in order to rid himself of Republican
opposition. The effect of this coup d'etat was to
unseat more than half of the members of Parliament,
thereby depriving it of the quorum necessary for the
transaction of business. As the Kuo-min-tang repre-
sented the South, this arbitrary procedure left all
southern China without parliamentary representa-
tion, the government now being completely domi-
nated by Yuan Shih-kai and his northern adherents.
The unseated legislators, threatened with arrest,
fled to Canton, where they established a schismatic
government under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen. A
southern army was organized for the purpose of
marching on Peking and restoring the constitutional
government, but Yuan Shih-kai, possessing a superi-
ority of force, had no difficulty in crushing the con-
stitutionalists, or, to put it more accurately, in con-
fining their activities to the south of the Yangtze.
This was the second revolution, or, if you prefer, the
first civil war, and it resulted in dividing China into

THE JADE PAGODA NEAR PEKING

CHINA 107

two armed camps — "the North" under Yuan Shih-
kai, and "the South" under Sun Yat-sen.

Emboldened by the success of his coup d'etat, Yuan
Shih-kai became more autocratic than ever. In order
to strengthen his grip on the northern provinces, he
appointed his military satellites as tuchuns, or pro-
vincial military governors, who, supported by large
forces of soldiery and vested with dictatorial powers,
proceeded to enforce Yuan's dictates in their respec-
tive provinces. Early in January, 1914, President
Yuan formally dissolved the rump parliament in
Peking, thereby ridding himself of the last vestige of
constitutional control. He then set about taking
measures to strengthen and consolidate his power.
The first of these measures was the creation of a
political council, composed of members appointed by
himself. This body, which was nothing more than
Yuan's instrument and mouthpiece, recommended
that the president call into being an elected assembly
— the idea being, no doubt, that it would give to his
unconstitutional actions at least a flavor of legality.
Within six weeks the political council, acting under
Yuan's dictation, had drawn up an "amended pro-
visional constitution" which provided for a single-
chambered legislative, whose members were to be
elected by popular vote, and a council of state, whose
members, appointed by the president, were to advise
him on those matters on which he might consult them.

198 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

The legislature was never elected, but the council
of state sat in the capacity of the legislature during
1014 and 1915. All this was but camouflage, how-
ever, designed to cloak the wholesale usurpation of
power by Yuan Shih-kai.

In the summer of 1915 a movement began in favor
of the reestablishment of the monarchy — a movement
secretly inspired by Yuan, who, though yielding lip-
service to the republican form of government, har-
bored the secret ambition of himself ascending the
Dragon Throne. In October the political council
made a show of constitutional procedure by referring
the question of reestablishing the monarchy to a vote
of the provinces, or rather to a number of Yuan's
political henchmen. The issue, of which there never
was the slightest doubt, was a practically unanimous
"vote" in favor of Yuan's accession to the throne as
emperor of a constitutional monarchy. On December
12, 1915, the monarchy was formally proclaimed, the
coronation ceremony being set for the February fol-
lowing. But it was not to be. For within a week
the storm, long brewing, which was to put an end to
the dictator and his ambitions, suddenly burst in the
distant province of Yunnan, which declared its inde-
pendence and emphasized its opposition to the restor-
ation of the monarchy by despatching a rabble army
against the imperial forces which had been hurried
to the adjacent province of Szechwan. The insur-
rectionary movement spread with surprising rapidity

CHINA 199

and Yuan's star quickly began to decline. Other
provinces followed the example of Yunnan in re-
nouncing their allegiance to the Peking government
and bodies of imperial troops began to make common
cause with the rebels. Late in January Yuan's
friends persuaded him to issue a proclamation an-
nouncing that the establishment of the monarchy had
been indefinitely postponed. But the announcement
came too late. The debacle had begun. In April,
1916, Yuan, in a last desperate attempt to retrieve
something from the wreck of his ambitions, agreed
to surrender all civil authority to the cabinet, which
had been reconstructed under the premiership of
Yuan's former minister of war, Tuan Chi-ju, an
able diplomatist and a professional harmonizer, who,
despite his monarchical sympathies, was popular with
the southern faction. Upon coming into power,
Premier Tuan Chi-ju attempted to placate the South
by promising that parliamentary government would
be reestablished at an early date. But meantime the
members of the Kuo-min-tang, who had been ex-
pelled from Peking, had organized a government of
their own at Canton and had proclaimed Vice-Presi-
dent Li Yuan-hung president of the republic. Thus
China found itself with two presidents and two gov-
ernments at the same time. But on June 5, 1916,
Yuan Shih-kai simplified the complicated situation
by dying. The physicians who attended him an-
nounced that his death was due to kidney trouble and

200 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

nervous prostration. The man in the street was
probably nearer the mark when he said that he died
from disappointment and humiliation — from "loss of
face."

The parliament which had been dissolved by Yuan
in 1913 was reconvened in August, 1016, under the
presidency of Li Yuan-hung, and the provisional
constitution of 1912 was again recognized as the
fundamental law of the republic. The reestab-
lished parliament at once began consideration of a
draft of a permanent constitution, but friction quickly
developed between the militarists of the North and
the republicans of the South. After some months of
bickering, the military governors of several of the
northern provinces declared their independence of
Peking and proceeded to establish a provisional gov-
ernment at Tientsin. President Li's position had now
become difficult and dangerous. In the hope of gain-
ing support in his struggle with the military gov-
ernors, who, backed by armies of mercenaries, had
become all-powerful in their respective provinces, the
president invited to Peking as a mediator General
Chang Hsun, a swashbuckling soldier and a former
pillar of the Manchu dynasty, who since 1911 had
maintained himself as virtual dictator of southern
Shantung. General Chang Hsun came promptly,
bringing with him a "bodyguard" of several thousand
men, who proceeded to occupy railway junctions and
other strategic positions about the capital. The day

CHINA 201

after Chang Hsun's arrival in the capital President
Li issued a mandate dissolving parliament.

Though summoned to Peking as a mediator, Chang
Hsun did not accept the role assigned to him. He
had been a dictator and a dictator he intended to
remain. He dreamed, as had Yuan Shih-kai, of
attaining supreme power, but, remembering the dis-
aster that had overtaken his predecessor, he did not
plan to himself assume the imperial yellow. He de-
cided that it was safer, and equally satisfactory, to
be the power behind the throne, his plans calling for
the restoration of the Manchu dynasty in the form
of a regency administered by himself as viceroy of
Chihli — the province in which the capital is situated.
For Chinese history has repeatedly shown that he who
holds Chihli holds Peking. Accordingly, before day-
break of July 1, 1917, General Chang Hsun sum-
moned from his bed the boy-emperor, who for five
years had been living in enforced but luxurious seclu-
sion in the Forbidden City, and informed the bewil-
dered and frightened lad that he was to reascend the
Dragon Throne. But the restored monarchy found
itself confronted with opposition on every hand.
Even the military governors, on whose support
Chang Hsun had confidently counted, refused to
support the new regime — not because they were op-
posed to the monarchy, but because they were afraid
that Chang Hsun, as regent, might succeed in under-
mining their own power. An army under the former

202 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

premier, Tuan Chi-ju, advanced on the capital from
Tientsin, while another force threatened to move up
from the South under the command of Vice-President
Feng Kuo-chang. On July 7, after less than a
week's reign, the emperor announced his abdication.
Chang Hsun's troops attempted a feeble defense of
the imperial city, but capitulated after a few days of
comic-opera warfare, the would-be dictator seeking
refuge in the Dutch legation.

President Li Yuan-hung, who, upon the restora-
tion of the monarchy, had fled to the Japanese lega-
tion, declined to resume a post for which he had no
liking and for which he was not adapted, and resigned
in favor of his vice-president, General Feng Kuo-
chang, who had been in command of the South's mili-
tary forces. The accepted theory in Peking at this
time was that the situation had now reverted to the
one which had existed in 1912, immediately after the
promulgation of the Provisional Constitution; that
all that had transpired during the interim was illegal;
and that everything must be done over again. Presi-
dent Feng Kuo-chang accordingly convened a council
for the purpose of drafting new laws for the election
of a new parliament, which was duly opened in Au-
gust, 1918. A few days later, by 425 out of 486 votes,
Hsu Shih-chang, a native of Hunan, who had held
in turn the posts of Viceroy of Manchuria, Grand
Secretary, Grand Councillor, Vice-Premier, Chief of
the General Staff, and Grand Guardian of the Em-

CHINA 208

peror, was elected President of the republic. His
term of office will expire in 1923.

But the Peking reading of the situation did not
satisfy South China or the members of the old par-
liament, who had been unseated a second time. These
were summoned to meet at Canton and to constitute
the real representative legislature of the republic
During the summer of 1018 a quorum of the old par-
liament was obtained, and for about a year China had
two parliaments — the one sitting at Peking, the other
at Canton — each subscribing to the Provisional Con-
stitution of 1912 and each claiming to be the sole
legislative body of the republic. The Canton Parlia-
ment finally broke up, however, in 1919.

Throughout the whole of 1918 there was desultory
fighting between the North and the South, the
provinces chiefly affected being those along the
Yangtze River. But the inability of the North to
make any headway in the campaign, the financial
embarrassments of both sides, and the growing dis-
satisfaction with a state of affairs that disrupted the
country and promised to lead nowhere resulted in the
president proclaiming an armistice when the news of
the armistice in Europe reached China. At about the
time the Peace Conference was assembling at Ver-
sailles, another peace conference, composed of rep-
resentatives of the North and the South, was as-
sembling on the neutral ground provided by (the
Settlement of Shanghai. But after months

204 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

of parleying the two factions appear to be no nearer
an agreement than before the conference began. At
the moment of writing, President Hsu Shih-chang is
still nominally in power in the North, while Dr. Sun
Yat-sen, with the title of Administrative Director,
appears to be in control of affairs in South China.

To add to the existing confusion, were such a thing
possible, both the North and the South proceeded to
split into opposing factions, so that the already dis-
tracted country, instead of being divided into two
camps, found itself broken up into four clearly de-
fined groups, each plotting against and checkmating
the others. The North split into the Anfu Club and
the Chihli factions. The Anfu Club was a political
organization composed of military men who were pro-
Japanese in their sympathies and most of whom were
popularly credited with being in the pay of Japan.
The Chihli group took its name from the metro-
politan province in which Peking is situated.

Upon the death of Yuan Shih-kai, the leadership
of the North passed, as I have already explained, to
General Tuan Chi-ju, a native of Anhwei Province
and a pillar of the Anfu Club, who became premier
in the cabinet of President Feng Kuo-chang, who was
a native of Chihli. In making his appointments,
President Feng naturally favored men from his own
province of Chihli, whereas Premier Tuan insisted
on filling the positions with men from Anhwei. This
was the beginning of a schism which split the North

I

i

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111

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»•*---*-• »-«.--

CHINA 205

wide open. The president and his premier intrigued
against each other in every possible way and on every
possible occasion. Premier Tuan and his fellow-
members of the Anfu Club, bought with Japanese
gold, advocated a rapprochement with Japan. Presi-
dent Feng and his Chihli adherents, on the contrary,
recognizing the popular hostility toward Japan,
steadfastly opposed everything which threatened to
strengthen Japan's grip on China. The military men
of the Anfu Club insisted on bringing the South to
terms by force of arms, whereas the Chihli group
believed in conciliatory measures. When Premier
Tuan despatched a military expedition against the
southern insurgents, the provinces of Kiangsu,
Kiangsi, and Hupeh, all controlled by President
Feng and the Chihli faction and all occupying strate-
gic positions along the Yangtze River, not only re-
fused to assist the enterprise, but even adopted to-
ward the South a policy of friendly neutrality. In
the summer of 1920 the smoldering enmity between
the Anfu and Chihli factions flamed into open war-
fare. There was a skirmish in the imperial city in
which a few lives were lost, whereupon the Anfu
troops either fled or surrendered, leaving the Chihli
faction in undisputed control of the North. By this
time public opinion had become so inflamed against
those officials who were believed to be intriguing with
Japan that Tuan Chi-ju, sensing the rising storm,
hastily resigned the premiership and withdrew from

206 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

public life, his fellow- Anfuites seeking safety in the
Japanese legation. Thus collapsed the notorious
Anfu Club, one of the most potent agencies for evil
in China.

The story of the dissensions which resulted in split-
ting the South into two factions is equally saturated
with jealousy, intrigue, and corruption. Here, as in
the North, personal greed and ambition were the prin-
cipal factors. In Canton, as in Peking, it was a case
of the "outs" versus the "ins." The southern govern-
ment originally consisted of those members of the first
Chinese Parliament who had been unseated by Yuan
Shih-kai, and who, fleeing to Canton, had there organ-
ized the provisional government. This government
had no president, but was headed by a board of seven
men, known as Administrative Directors. For a time
things went smoothly enough, but friction eventually
developed and the directorate split into two factions.
One faction came to be known as the Sun- Wu-Tang
group from the first names of its principal leaders —
Sun Yat-sen, Wu Ting-fang, and Tang Shao-yi.
The other faction, headed by two other directors,
Chen Chun-hsien and Lu Yung-ting, in like manner
took the appellation of the Chen-Lu group. The split
came because Chen and Lu persisted in ignoring the
decisions of the majority of the directorate, because
they used funds appropriated to pay members of par-
liament for the payment of their own troops, and
because it was discovered that they were carrying on

CHINA 207

secret negotiations with the Chihli group in the North.
The Chen-Lu faction replied to these accusations by
charging the Sun-Wu-Tang party with intriguing
with the Anf u Club. The existing relations between
the two southern factions are ill-defined. Though
both maintain armed forces in the field, they fight
but rarely, and, to add to the Gilbert and Sulli-
van atmosphere, their leaders are in constant tele-
graphic communication with each other and with
Peking.

Nor should you get the idea that the North and
the South are seriously at war. More than that, there
is no longer any serious pretense of vital difference
between them. The only real warfare now being
waged in China is the interminable struggle for place,
power, patronage, and pelf between the "ins" and
the "outs/' which has gone on, almost without inter-
ruption, since the dawn of Chinese history. Despite
all the talk about patriotic ideals, constitutional gov-
ernment, and parliamentary reform, it is, in the last
analysis, a sordid and purely mercenary conflict. The
"governments" at Peking and Canton ("misgovern-
ments" would be a more fitting term) consist of
groups of predatory, self-seeking officials who are
far more concerned in strengthening their own posi-
tions and, incidentally, in filling their own pockets
than they are in pulling China out of the slough of
despond, setting her on her feet, and giving her an
honest and efficient administration.

208 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

Overshadowing both the northern and the southern
governments, and still further complicating a political
situation already confused almost past understand-
ing, is the tuchunate — the system of tuchuns, or pro-
vincial military governors, who are the real rulers of
China. In theory, each tuchun represents the central
government in his respective province, being respon-
sible to Peking for the entire local administration —
political, judicial, fiscal, and military. In theory, I
have said. For in practice he is accountable to no
one but himself and obeys the orders of Peking or
Canton — depending upon whether he is a supporter
of the North or the South — only when it suits him to
do so. Each tuchtm exercises autocratic power within
the limits of his own province. Though he is supposed
to govern with the assistance and advice of a civil gov-
ernor and a provincial assembly, he always over-
shadows them and usually ignores them completely,
making and administering his own laws, imposing his
own taxes, collecting his own revenues, and using
them for his own purposes. As a result of this anom-
alous situation, conditions in China are comparable
in many respects to those which prevailed in Mexico
when Villa was dictator of the North and Zapata
held sway in the South, both of them completely ig-
noring the mandates issued by the central govern-
ment from the City of Mexico.

Perhaps the closest parallel to the tuchwns, how-
ever, is to be found in those leaders of mercenaries,

CHINA 209

known as condottieri, who for nearly three hundred
years held medieval Italy in their grasp. As the great
mass of the Italian peasantry took no part in the wars
of that period, contenting themselves with the role
of onlookers, war was not merely the trade of the
condottiere, but also his monopoly, and he was thus
able to obtain whatever terms he demanded, whether
money payments or political concessions. Precisely
the same holds true of the tuchwn. The condottieri
were always ready to change sides at the prospect of
higher pay. So are the tuckuns. As the condottieri
were to a certain extent bound together by the bonds
of a common profession and by a common contempt
for the civilian population, and as they realized that
the enemy of to-day might well be the ally of to-mor-
row, their battles were often as bloodless as they were
theatrical. A similar lack of bloodshed usually charac-
terizes the clashes between the forces of the tuchwns.
Just as the great condottiere, Francisco Sforza, the
son of a Neapolitan peasant, climbed on the lances of
his mercenaries to the dukedom of Milan and the
overlordship of northern Italy, so Chang Tso-lin, a
one-time bandit, has climbed on the bayonets of his
mercenaries to the tuchunate of Mukden and to-
day holds the whole of Manchuria in the hollow of his
hand.

The tuchwns keep themselves in power by means of
personal armies — usually little more than uniformed
bandits — which vary in size from the few battalions

210 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

maintained by the less important governors to the
well-organized force of one hundred thousand men
maintained by the great super-tuchun, Chang Tso-lin.
There are to-day more than a score of such private
armies, totaling, it is estimated, not far from
1,200,000 men. Thus is presented the astonishing
paradox of China, the weakest of all nations, having
under arms more soldiers than any other nation in
the world. Though these armies are supported from
the public revenues, the tuckuns 'brazenly use them
for private purposes. They will always sell their
services to the party or faction that will pay the
highest price, and they use the threat of their mili-
tary power to strengthen their own position. As
a result, the more powerful tuchuns wield a power
more arbitrary and absolute than was ever dreamed of
by the dictators of Latin-America. For example,
when Chang Tso-lin wishes to move troops he seizes a
sufficient number of railway cars and moves them
whither he will. If his army requires aircraft, he
sends troops to Peking with orders to help themselves
from the government supply, puts the planes on flat-
cars, and without so much as a by-your-leave trans-
ports them to his stronghold at Mukden. When he
needs money to pay his troops, or for the purpose of
raising more men, or for investment in some new busi-
ness enterprise, he sends a telegram to Peking — and
gets it. The government does not dare to oppose or
refuse him, for it is perfectly aware that it exists only

CHINA 211

on his sufferance. And what is true of Chang Tso-lin
is equally true of Tsao Kun, tuchwn of the metropoli-
tan province of Chihli, and in a lesser degree of all the
other tuchims. As a result of their strangle-hold on
the country, these military dictators have succeeded in
amassing far greater fortunes under the republic than
the viceroys ever did under the empire. Indeed, the
most pressing question in China to-day is how to limit
the power and rapacity of the tuchims, how to bring
them under the authority of the central government.
If China is to escape complete disruption, the tuchims
must cease being each a law unto himself. And this
will come about only when their so-called armies have
been disbanded under some scheme, which will insure
their disappearance for good and all. As Mr. J. O.
P. Bland concisely puts it: "Nobody doubts for a mo-
ment that the whole Chinese army would be delighted
to return to its ancestral homes with all arrears of pay
and a three months' bonus. The question is, however,
who is going to prevent the tuchims from replacing
them next morning by a new set of loot-hungry
coolies?"

The whole deplorable situation has been set forth
with admirable fairness by a supporter of the south-
ern faction, Mr. S. 6. Cheng, in his book, "Modern
China." One passage is so illuminating that it de-
serves quoting in full :

"For military operations against the North, the
South depends on governors who are just as selfish

212 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

as their northern colleagues. It also receives, as its
allies, brigands or military leaders who have some
personal grievance against the North and who desire
to gratify their greed and ambition by taking advan-
tage of the quarrel between the constitutionalists and
the militarists. Among the army commanders of the
South, many have no sympathy at all with the demo-
cratic aspirations of the constitutionalists, but fight
their own battle under the cloak of a good cause.
This hopeless state of affairs is acknowledged and de-
plored by the southern leader, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who
summarizes the situation by saying that the struggle
of military leaders for supremacy is equally rampant
in the South and in the North, and that he has almost
exhausted his voice, with no effect, in calling atten-
tion to the incoherent situation/'

HI

In works of reference and official publications China
is referred to — at least by implication — as a sovereign
state, an independent nation. As a matter of fact,
however, her independence is largely fictitious, the
fiction being maintained because an official admission
of her true status would be as embarrassing to those
foreign nations which really control the country as it
would be humiliating to the Chinese themselves.
Doubtless there are those who will attempt to ques-

CHINA 218

tion my assertion that China is not an independent
nation by pointing out that she has her own govern-
ment, her own army, her own diplomatic service, her
own postal system, and her own flag. Let me answer
such critics by asking if a nation can truthfully be
called independent, in the generally accepted sense of
the term, which ( 1 ) does not control its own fiscal af-
fairs; which (2) is not permitted to revise its own
tariff; which (3) is not permitted to collect its own
revenues; which (4) is not permitted to appoint or re-
call its officials in certain portions of its own territory
without the consent of a foreign power ; which (5 ) can-
not negotiate foreign loans or grant concessions to for-
eigners without the permission of other powers ; which
(6) is not permitted to control its own inland water-
ways; which (7) cannot sell, cede, or lease its own
territory as it sees fit; which (8) does not possess
jurisdiction over foreigners dwelling within its bor-
ders; which (9) is forced to agree to the maintenance
on its soil of foreign courts, foreign police forces, for-
eign prisons, and foreign post-offices; (10) within
whose borders four foreign powers maintain armed
forces; and (11) whose territory is seized and held by
foreign nations without provocation or excuse? With
foreign armies on her soil, with foreign flags flying
over her seaports, with foreign courts functioning
in her cities, with foreign gunboats patrolling her
rivers, with foreign officials collecting her customs and
her salt-duties, and with other foreigners supervising

214 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

her fiscal affairs, China might be described, without
taking undue liberties with the truth, as a country
under foreign occupation. It is a curious commen-
tary on international standards of morality and jus-
tice that China should receive less consideration from
her late allies, so far as their refraining from inter-
ference with her domestic affairs is concerned, than
is accorded to unregenerate and resentful Germany.

The position of virtual vassalage in which China
finds herself to-day is not due to centuries of persis-
tent nibbling by land-hungry nations, as in the case
of Africa; it is the result of barely four score years
of foreign aggression and spoliation. Until nearly
the middle of the nineteenth century the regions di-
rectly under the sway of the Chinese emperors ex-
tended from the borders of Siberia on the north to An-
nam and Burmah on the south, and from the Pacific
Ocean on the east to Russian Turkestan on the west.
There was also a fringe of tributary states — Korea,
Annam, Burmah, and Nepaul — which still kept up
the ancient forms of allegiance and which acknowl-
edged in greater or less degrees the suzerainty of
Peking.

The dismemberment of China may be said to have
been initiated by Great Britain in 1840, when, as
the result of her ignoble victory in the so-called
"Opium War" — a war waged to impose a poisonous
drug on China against her will — the Chinese Gov-

CHINA 215

eminent was forced to cede to the victors the island
of Hong Kong, occupying a position of immense
strategic and commercial importance in that it com-
mands the approaches to the great port of Canton ; to
pay an indemnity of twenty-one million dollars; and
to consent to the importation of opium.

In 1849 the Portuguese, who some three centuries
earlier had established a trading-post at Macao, a
small island at the mouth of the Canton River for
which they had long paid a trifling annual rental to
the government at Peking, emulated the high-handed
methods pursued by the Great Powers in their treat-
ment of China by suddenly expelling the Chinese gar-
rison and declaring the island a Portuguese posses-
sion. For nearly forty years there was a state of
quasi-war between Portugal and China over Macao,
but a treaty was finally concluded in 1887 whereby
the Chinese Government ceded the island to Portugal
in perpetuity. Though, by the terms of this treaty,
Portugal agreed to cooperate with the Chinese Gov-
ernment in the suppression of the opium trade, she has
never adhered to her promise. On the contrary, she
has steadily developed her lucrative opium and gam-
bling monopolies in Macao, free rein being given in
this European-owned territory to those vices of which
the Chinese have honestly endeavored to rid them-
selves. As a result, Macao is the most notorious sink
of iniquity in the China Seas, vice in every form

216 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

flaunting itself, naked and unashamed, where the ban-
ished poet, Camoens, wrote the immortal epic of his
native land.

Sixteen years after the "Opium War" Great Brit-
ain again went to war with China, this time because
Chinese authorities had seized a Chinese vessel flying
the British flag on the ground that it was manned
by Chinese pirates. By way of punishment for this
affront to British dignity, Canton was bombarded
and occupied and its viceroy exiled to Calcutta,
where he died in prison. Before the menace of
the guns of an Anglo-French squadron the Chinese
Government agreed to sign treaties with Great Brit-
ain and France granting their nationals extraterri-
torial rights and opening the Yangtze River to Brit-
ish and French commerce. But before the treaty
could be ratified an incident occurred which over-
shadowed the war in the seriousness of its conse-
quences. The Pei-ho River, which connects Tient-
sin with Peking, was closed to foreign vessels, but
the warships • bearing the British and French en-
voys, who were on their way to the capital to obtain
the ratification of the treaty, attempted to force the
river defenses and were repulsed. Thereupon a
second allied expedition was hurried from Europe,
Peking was occupied and looted of priceless treasures
in jewels, jade, bronze, and porcelain, and, as a crown-
ing act of vandalism, the Summer Palace was burned.
As this was not deemed sufficient punishment, China

CHINA 217

was forced to pay large indemnities to France and
Great Britain and to cede to the latter a strip of ter-
ritory along the Kowloon peninsula, on the mainland
opposite Hong Kong.

The next nation to exert pressure on China was
Russia, which, during the middle years of the nine-
teenth century, had begun to colonize the territory
along the lower reaches of the Amur as a step in her
advance toward the Pacific. This was a remote region,
undeveloped and sparsely settled, and, as the Rus-
sians pointed out, it had only been a part of the
Chinese Empire for a few hundred years. In 1860,
China, yielding to Muscovite coercion, ceded to Russia
all the Chinese territory lying north of the Amur and
between the Ussuri and the Pacific. On the coast
of this territory, which comprises the present Amur
and Maritime Provinces, Russia founded the port
of Vladivostok, thereby obtaining her long-desired
outlet on the ice-free waters of the Japan Sea. So
easily was this vast territory acquired — taking land
from China was like taking candy from a child — that
in 1881 the Tsar's government tried its luck again,
this time obtaining the cession of a portion of the
fertile province of Kulja, in westernmost China, bor-
dering on Russian Turkestan. I almost forgot to
mention that, in addition to her loss of territory, China
had to pay Russia an indemnity of nine million rubles.

In 1888 it was France's turn again. The French
Government, having decided to round out its pos-

218 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

sessions in IndoChina, despatched an expedition for
the conquest of Annam, which had always been re-
garded as tributary to China. The Peking govern-
ment protested, and there was a frontier skirmish in
which both French and Chinese troops were killed,
whereupon France promptly declared war. The
French were victorious at sea and the Chinese on land,
but, as the former had political troubles of their own
at home, they consented to a compromise, which con-
sisted in China recognizing the French protectorate
over Annam. This time, thanks to the diplomacy of
Li Hung-chang, France did not succeed in extracting
an indemnity.

While China had been engaged in her controversy
with France over Annam, Great Britain had invaded
Burmah, occupied its capital, and deposed King The-
baw. Hitherto Burmah had been considered a vassal
state of China and had paid her tribute annually,
so, merely to satisfy diplomatic etiquette and to
make the title clear, China was asked to give her
formal assent to the incorporation of Burmah in the
Indian Empire.' She gave her assent — there was
nothing else for her to do — and, for a wonder, no
indemnity was demanded by Great Britain.

In 1894-95 came China's brief but disastrous war
with Japan, to which, as the price of defeat, she was
forced to cede the great, rich island of Formosa and
the Liao-tung Peninsula, on which were the towns of
Dalny and Port Arthur. But it did not suit the

CHINA 219

policies of certain European powers, particularly Rus-
sia, to see the Island Empire obtain a foothold on the
Asian mainland, so Russia, France, and Germany
presented a joint note to Japan suggesting that the
Liao-tung Peninsula be restored to China. As
Japan was in no position to resist the pressure thus
brought to bear, she sullenly obeyed, retaining only
Formosa. But though China retrieved the Liao-tung
Peninsula, thanks to European intervention, a huge
indemnity (230 million taels) was exacted by Japan
and she was also forced to renounce her claims of
suzerainty over Korea, thus losing the third of her
great tributary states.

Evidence was soon forthcoming, however, that
Russia and France had not been disinterested in
rescuing Chinese territory from the grasp of Japan,
for Russia now demanded from Peking and obtained
the right to carry the trans-Siberian Railway straight
across Manchuria to Vladivostok, thus avoiding a long
and costly detour. The syndicate which was to build
the railway was also granted enormous timber and
mining concessions in the regions through which the
line was to pass and was authorized to maintain its
own gendarmerie. This was the first step in the
alienation of Manchuria. As payment for the part
she had played in resisting the Japanese demands,
France asked for and obtained a rectification of the
frontier between China and Indo-China, as well as cer-
tain mining rights in Kiangsi and Yunnan. Both

220 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

powers also obtained territorial concessions in Han-
kow for French and Russian settlements in that city.
But as a result of the rectification of the Indo-China
frontier England claimed that her interests had been
injured and demanded compensation in the form of
considerable modifications in the boundaries of Bur-
mah, thereby adding several thousand square miles to
the British Empire.

While Russia and France were profiting by what
they were pleased to call the generosity of China,
Germany alone had so far received no reward for
her share in compelling the restitution of Liao-tung,
but in 1897 she proceeded to help herself by suddenly
seizing the Bay of Kiauchau, on the eastern side of the
Shantung Peninsula. The seizure was made osten-
sibly in order to obtain redress for the murder of two
German missionaries, but in reality because Ger-
many's scheme of naval expansion demanded a har-
bor and naval base in the Far East. The following
year Germany succeeded in extracting from China a
ninety-nine-year lease of Kiauchau Bay, together
with the city of Tsing-tau and a considerable area of
adjacent territory, with liberty to build docks, erect
fortifications, and exercise all the rights of sover-
eignty. In the same year Russia, which only a short
time before had forced Japan to restore Port Arthur
and Dalny to China, demanded from the Chinese Gov-
ernment a twenty-five-year lease of those ports on the
ground that her interests in Manchuria must be pro-

CHINA 221

tected against German penetration. This was the
cue for England and France to again appear upon the
scene, both of them demanding further concessions
from China in order, as they explained, to preserve
the balance of power in Eastern Asia. France de-
manded and obtained a ninety-nine-year lease of
Kwang-chou-wan, on the mainland, opposite the
island of Hainan, while England took Weihaiwei, at
the extremity of the Shantung Peninsula, for as long
as Russia remained in Fort Arthur. (Though Russia
surrendered Port Arthur to Japan in 1905, the Union
Jack still flies over Weihaiwei. ) France, finding that
fruit could be had for the picking, then demanded
and obtained some valuable mining concessions in
South China, England responding to this move
by exacting from the government at Peking
a pledge that the Yangtze Valley would not be
alienated to a third power. Thereupon France came
back with a demand that China agree not to alienate
to a third power the three southern provinces of
Kwangtung, Kwangsi, and Yunnan. This left
France slightly in the lead, so, to make matters even,
England demanded a ninety-nine-year lease of the
Kowloon Peninsula, comprising nearly four hundred
square miles on the mainland opposite Hong Kong,
a portion of which, it will be remembered, had
been ceded to her forty years before. And by way
of getting good measure she also obtained from China
an undertaking to throw open the whole of her inland

222 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

waterways to steam traffic, at the same time exacting
a promise that the post of Inspector-General of Cus-
toms (then held by Sir Robert Hart) should always
be held by an Englishman as long as the trade of
Great Britain with China was greater than that of
any other nation.

The territorial concessions thus exacted from
China by the European nations marked the be-
ginning of the "spheres of influence" policy and
would have inevitably resulted in the complete parti-
tion of the country had not the United States stepped
in, in 1899, and enunciated its policy of "the open
door," meaning equal opportunity for all. By her
insistence that the customs duties in the leased terri-
tories and spheres of influence should be made no
higher than those prevailing in other parts of the
empire,' the United States secured an equal oppor-
tunity for the commerce of all nations, large and
small, and minimized the chances of a conflict between
the powers which might have led to an extension of
their territory at the expense of China. Great Britain,
to her credit, was the first to endorse this policy of
"the open door," and the other powers, though some-
what reluctantly, followed her example.

As was only to have been expected, the long series
of aggressions by the foreign powers eventually re-
sulted in arousing among the patient and long-suffer-
ing Chinese people a feeling of bitter resentment and

CHINA 228

a desire for revenge. This smoldering resentment was
fanned into flame by a secret society, known as "Har-
monious and Peaceful Fists/' which organized an agi-
tation with the avowed object of killing all the for-
eigners in China in order to save the country from
further territorial encroachments and humiliations.
In June, 1900, the movement, which came to be known
as the Boxer Rebellion, burst over northeastern China
with the fury of a hurricane. Hundreds of foreign
traders and missionaries were murdered in the out-
lying provinces. In Peking the Europeans sought
refuge in the legations, which, though besieged by
thousands of Boxers, aided by imperial troops, suc-
ceeded in holding out until the arrival of an allied
relief expedition. The reparations demanded by the
Allies for this affair were calculated to discourage the
Chinese Government from ever again countenancing
an attack on foreigners within its borders. China was
forced to execute certain of the officials responsible
for the outbreak and to degrade others ; to send special
envoys to Berlin and Tokio to formally apologize for
the murder of the German minister and the secretary
of the Japanese legation ; to raze the Taku forts at the
mouth of the Pei-ho River; to permit a foreign mili-
tary occupation of the strategic points between the
capital and the coast, thereby insuring communication
with the sea; to permit the fortification of the legation
quarter in Peking and the maintenance of permanent

224 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

legation guards therein ; and to pay an indemnity of
450 million taels, equivalent to about 337 million dol-
lars.

This staggering indemnity, which is now generally
admitted to have been excessive and unjust, was se-
cured (1) on the balance of the maritime customs
revenue not already mortgaged for previous loans,
the Powers permitting the Chinese Government to
raise its tariff on imported articles to an effective five
per cent, ad valorem; (2) on the revenue of the "na-
tive" customs in the treaty ports; and (3) on the
total revenues of the Salt Gabelle, salt being a gov-
ernment monopoly. The collection of these revenues
was insured by the establishment of effective foreign
control of both the customs and salt administrations.
The Boxer indemnity was converted into a loan
which was to be repaid in annual installments extend-
ing over a period of thirty-nine years, so that, had
events followed a normal course, China would not have
regained control of her own finances until 1940. But
in 1008 the American Government, desiring to set
China on her feet financially, informed the govern-
ment at Peking that the United States was prepared
to refund the shares of the indemnity that it had al-
ready received and to remit the balance, on condition
that the money should be used for the purpose of
sending Chinese youths to the United States to be
educated. By this altruistic action the United States
won the confidence and friendship of the Chinese for

CHINA 225

all time. When, following the advice of the United
States and the pleading of the Allies, China declared
war against Germany in 1917* she promptly ceased
payment of the German share of the indemnity, and
a few months later also ceased payment to Russia.
Her financial burden was still further relieved, at
least temporarily, when, upon her entry into the war,
the Allies agreed to suspend the payment of their
shares of the indemnity for five years, or until 1922.
In view of the great assistance which China rendered
the Allies during the war by supplying them with
laborers and her extinction of German competition in
Chinese markets, it would seem that the least the Al-
lies could have done by way of showing their gratitude
was to follow the example of the United States and
write off the payments of the indemnity still due them.
More selfish, more short-sighted than the United
States, however, they contented themselves with a
five-year suspension. If the Powers concerned are
sincerely desirous of rehabilitating China, their first
step should be to completely remit, or at least mate-
rially reduce, the intolerable burden imposed by the
Boxer indemnities.

The next assault against Chinese sovereignty was
made by Great Britain in 1904, when the British
Government despatched an expedition to Lhassa, the
capital of Tibet, under Colonel Sir Francis Young-
husband. Yielding to the pressure thus brought to

226 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

bear, the Dalai Lama was forced to sign a treaty
which provides (1) "that no portion of Tibetan terri-
tory shall be ceded, sold, leased, or mortgaged to any
other Power without the previous consent of the Brit-
ish Government" ; (2) "that no representative of any
other country may be admitted" ; (3) "that no conces-
sion for railways, telegraphs, mining, or other rights
shall be granted to another Power"; and (4) "that no
Tibetan revenues shall be pledged or assigned to any
other government." This treaty, which the Tibetans
were forced to sign literally at the mouths of British
guns, constituted a flagrant infringement of Chinese
sovereignty, for from time beyond reckoning Tibet
had formed an integral part of the Chinese Empire
and its rulers had acknowledged the suzerainty of
Peking. Under the circumstances, however, there
was nothing for Peking to do but submit with the
best grace possible, the Chinese Government con-
firming the treaty in exchange for Great Britain's
pledge not to annex Tibet or to encroach on its in-
ternal autonomy. Since then Great Britain has
steadily strengthened her position in Tibet, demand-
ing and obtaining new privileges and pursuing a
policy which has for its object, apparently, the even-
tual alienation of Tibetan territory. For example, a
recent agreement provides that China may not dis-
miss officials in Tibet, or appoint new ones, without
first obtaining British permission. In short, the
Chinese Government was warned by Great Britain

CHINA 227

that the acknowledged sovereignty of China in Tibet
must not be allowed to lead to the exercise of actual
sovereignty. Yet Tibet is represented by five depu-
ties in the Chinese parliament.

In the same year that England invaded Tibet
came the war between Japan and Russia, a war fought
almost wholly on Chinese soil in cynical disregard of
Chinese rights or neutrality. The result of this con-
flict did not greatly alter China's position in Man-
churia. In South Manchuria Japan fell heir to the
special privileges which Russia had wrung from
China, taking over the lease of Port Arthur and
Dalny (now known as Dairen) and the South Man-
churia Railway as far north as Changchun. This in-
cludes seventy square miles in the railway zone about
the fifty-five stations along the line. Over this zone
and the 1300 square miles of leased land surrounding
Port Arthur and Dairen Japan rules as absolutely as
in her own island realm. Japan also retained posses-
sion of the light military railway which she built dur-
ing the war from Antung, on the Korean frontier, to
Mukden, and which she later converted into a
standard-gauge line. This line connects at Antung
with the Korean system, which, in August, 1017,
passed under the control of the South Manchuria
Railway, thus giving the Japanese a through line,
under their own management, from Fusan, the Ko-
rean port nearest Japan, to Changchun, where con-
nection with the railway system to Harbin, on

228 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

the main line of the Trans-Siberian, is effected.
The section from Changchun to Harbin, and that
portion of the Trans-Siberian which traverses Man-
churia, are at present under Japanese control and
guarded by Japanese troops. As these railways
traverse the central and most fertile areas of a prov-
ince larger than our three Pacific Coast states put to-
gether, capable of supporting a population of 100
millions, their value to Japan is obvious, and, unless
I am greatly mistaken, she will not readily relax her
grip on them. Though at Portsmouth both Russia
and Japan solemnly agreed to evacuate Manchuria
and restore it to China, it remains an imperium in
imperio, theoretically an integral part of the Chinese
Republic but to all intents and purposes a territory
of the Japanese Empire*

We now come to the question of Shantung — a
question as easy of explanation as it should be
of solution. In 1898, as I have already mentioned,
Germany coerced China into granting her a ninety-
nine-year lease of Kiauchau Bay, on the coast of
Shantung Province, together with the territory in a
fifty kilometer radius of the bay, including the sea-
port of Tsingtau. On the coast of one of the richest
and most populous provinces of China, midway be-
tween Peking and Shanghai, within a few hours'
steam of Weihaiwei, Tientsin, and Port Arthur, it
occupies a position of immense strategic importance.
Here the Germans proceeded to intrench themselves,

THE PAWNSHOPS OF CANTON

VIEW PROM THE TERRACE OF THE SUMMER PALACE

BRIDGE IN THE GARDENS OF THE SUMMER PALACE, PEKING

CHINA 220

pouring out money like water in the construction of an
elaborate system of fortifications, a spacious harbor,
dockyards, machine-shops, warehouses, and all the
other appurtenances of a great naval base. At the
same time that the Germans obtained the lease of
Kiauchau they extracted from the Chinese Govern-
ment a concession to build a railway across the prov-
ince from Tsingtau to Tsinanfu, a station on the
trunk-line from Shanghai to Peking. The Germans
proved themselves rapid workers, transforming the
squalid Chinese seaport of Tsingtau into a modern
city, with paved streets and electric-lights and sub-
stantial buildings, and constructing the railway to
Tsinanfu, a distance of 256 miles, in a surprisingly
short time. By 1914, therefore, the whole peninsula
of Shantung was pretty thoroughly under German
domination.

Within a fortnight after the outbreak of the World
War Japan sent an ultimatum to Germany demand-
ing the unconditional surrender of the entire leased
territory of Kiauchau, "with a view to the eventual
restoration of the same to China." No reply being
received from the German Government, Japan de-
clared war on August 23, 1014, and the harbor of
Kiauchau was blockaded by a Japanese squadron. A
few days later a Japanese expeditionary force landed
on the coast of Shantung and, with the cooperation of
a contingent of British and Indian troops from Wei-
haiwei, captured the forts defending the harbor and

280 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

the city on November 6, 1914. After the triumphal
entry of the allied forces into Tsingtau, Great Britain,
having done her part in aiding Japan to oust the Ger-
mans, withdrew her troops and abstained from inter-
fering with the administration of the leased territory,
which was now completely occupied by the Japanese,
who also proceeded to take over and operate the rail-
way from Tsingtau to Tsinanfu.

Now it should be kept in mind, in considering the
Shantung controversy, that at this time China was
neutral, for she did not enter the war until three years
later. According to international law, "the territory
of neutral powers is inviolable." And Kiauchau was
indisputably Chinese territory, having only been
leased to Germany. A nation may lease a portion of
its territory, just as an individual may lease a build-
ing, but the territory, like the building, remains the
property of the lessor. Hence, when Japan and
Great Britain attacked and captured Kiauchau they
were, strictly speaking, violating Chinese neutrality.
As it was common knowledge, however, that Germany
was fitting out raiders in Kiauchau harbor for the
purpose of preying on allied commerce, and it was
obvious that China did not herself possess sufficient
strength to reoccupy Kiauchau and intern the Ger-
man garrison, 1 in the judgment of most fair-minded

1 1 am informed by Dr. J. C. Ferguson, the Adviser to the President
of China, that the Chinese Government would have taken steps to
reoccupy Kiauchau and intern the German garrison had Japan not
objected. £. A. P.

CHINA 231

men, Japan was fully justified in capturing the Ger-
man forts on the ground of self -protection. If, after
the capitulation of the garrison, Japan had contented
herself with dismantling the forts and had then re-
stored the leased territory to China, there would have
been no Shantung question. Japan, however, took
the position that by her capture of Kiauchau she
automatically succeeded Germany as lessee and that
she need not restore the territory to China, unless she
saw fit to do so, until the expiration of the original
lease in 1997. As though to still further show their
contempt for Chinese neutrality, a Japanese army
pushed inland as far as Tsinanf u, the terminus of the
railway from Tsingtau and two hundred miles beyond
the limits of the leased territory, requisitioning with-
out compensation cattle, horses, carts, boats, grain,
and provisions from the peaceful Chinese inhabitants
of the country through which it passed and threaten-
ing with severe punishment any one who disobeyed the
orders of the Japanese high command. All this, mark
you, in a region which had never been leased to or
occupied by the Germans and which was as essentially
Chinese as Peking itself.

The Chinese Government protested against Japan's
actions with unexpected vigor, demanding the restora-
tion of Kiauchau on the ground that the lease was not
transferable and the immediate evacuation of the por-
tion of Shantung occupied by Japanese troops on the
ground that such occupation constituted an unjusti-

282 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

fiable invasion of a neutral country. Japan replied
that the territory along the line of the Tsingtau-Tsin-
anf u railway had been occupied as "a military neces-
sity/' but that it was her intention eventually to with-
draw her troops from this region and to restore Kiau-
chau to China — wider certain conditions.

These conditions were made known to China in a
Japanese note presented to the government at Peking
in May, 1015:

"When, after the termination of the present war,
the leased territory of Kiauchau Bay is completely
left to the free disposal of Japan, the Japanese Gov-
ernment will restore said leased territory to China
under the following conditions:

"1. The whole of Kiauchau Bay to be opened as a
commercial port.

"2. A concession under the exclusive jurisdiction of
Japan to be established at a place designated by the
Japanese Government.

"3. If the foreign powers desire if, an international
settlement may be established.

"4. As regards the disposal to be made of the build-
ings and properties of Germany, and the conditions
and procedure relating thereto, the Japanese Gov-
ernment and the Chinese Government shall arrange
the matter by mutual agreement before the restora-
tion."

This constituted Japan's idea of keeping the pledge,
as made in her ultimatum to Germany, to restore

CHINA 238

Kiauchau to China, but it is obvious that the operation
of the four conditions attached to the offer would at
the same time transfer to her, in effect, all the rights,
privileges, interests, and advantages formerly enjoyed
by the Germans. China's acceptance of these condi-
tions not only would have given Japan effective con-
trol of the Kiauchau territory, even though the Rising
Sun flag did not actually fly over it, but of the railways
of the province and the rich iron and coal districts
through which they pass. Under such circumstances
it would be an easy matter for Japan to bring the
whole province of Shantung within her sphere of in-
fluence, thence penetrating the adjacent provinces
and finally realizing her ambition of dominating the
whole of that rich and populous littoral which stretches
from Port Arthur to Canton. It was not the transfer
of a few concessions or a few square miles of territory
which aroused the apprehension and the resentment
of China. It required no great discernment on the
part of the Chinese to recognize that, with Japan al-
ready impregnably intrenched in Korea, in Man-
churia, and on the Kwantung peninsula, the establish-
ment of Japanese domination in Shantung would
complete a slip-noose about the capital itself, enabling
Japan to choke the republic into submission whenever
she saw fit.

When, therefore, the representatives of China, one
of the Allies since 1017, took their seats at the Peace
Conference at the close of the war, they demanded di-

284 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

rect and unconditional restoration of Kiauchau by
Germany, instead of through the agency of Japan,
basing their argument on the ground that China
should enjoy the same rights as the other Allies, and
that, moreover, there was nothing to be gained by
taking two steps to make the transfer, when it could
be effected by one. It is not my intention to enter into
an account of the furious controversy precipitated at
Paris by China's resolute stand on the Shantung ques-
tion, a controversy which came perilously near to
wrecking the Peace Conference. The Japanese dele-
gates not only refused to accept the arguments of the
Chinese, but were infuriated that the case should have
been brought before the Conference at all, strong
pressure being brought by Tokio upon the govern-
ment at Peking to recall its representatives at Paris
forthwith. When, late in April, 1919, the question of
Kiauchau was brought before the Council of Four for
final decision the Italian delegation had withdrawn
from the Conference, owing to the dispute over
Fiume, and Japan, taking advantage of the delicate
situation which had thus been created, threatened to
follow Italy's example should the matter of Kiauchau
not be decided to her satisfaction. In all likelihood
Japan's withdrawal would have resulted in the break-
up of the Conference, a catastrophe which even a man
so iron-willed as President Wilson did not dare to risk.
Persuaded, therefore, by the verbal assurances of the
Japanese, that Kiauchau and the rest of the Shantung

CHINA 285

peninsula would be voluntarily restored in full sov-
ereignty to China, he reluctantly agreed to the inser-
tion in the Treaty of F'eace of the much-criticized
Articles 156 and 157. They read:

Article 156. Germany renounces, in favour of Japan, all
her rights, title, and privileges — particularly those con-
cerning the territory of Eiaochow, railways, mines, and
submarine cables — which she acquired in virtue of the
Treaty concluded by her with China on March 6, 1898, and
of all other arrangements relative to the Province of Shan-
tung. All German rights in the Tsingtao-Tsinanfu Rail-
way, including its branch lines, together with its subsidiary
property of all kinds, stations, shops, fixed and rolling
stock, mines, plant and material for the exploitation of the
mines, are and remain acquired by Japan, together with all
her rights and privileges attaching thereto. The German
State submarine cables from Tsingtao to Shanghai and
from Tsingtao to Chef oo, with all the rights, privileges, and
properties attaching thereto, are similarly acquired by
Japan free and clear of all charges and encumbrances.

Article 157. The movable and immovable property
owned by the German State in the territory of Kiaochow,
as well as all the rights which Germany might claim in con-
sequence of the works or improvements made or of the ex-
penses incurred by her directly or indirectly in connexion
with this territory, are and remain acquired by Japan, free
and clear of all charges and encumbrances.

In order to defend their country's rights and at the
same time obviate an open breach with the Allies, the
Chinese delegates, while protesting these articles, of-
fered to sign the treaty provided they were permitted
to make a reservation regarding the clause relating to
Shantung. Informed that no reservation would be
permitted, the Chinese delegation reluctantly with-

286 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

drew from the Conference. It has been held by some
that they would have placed their country in a stronger
position had they signed the treaty, trusting to Japan
to redeem her promises to restore Shantung. But
the truth of the matter was that the Chinese did not
trust Japan — and with good reason. For Japan had
made promises to China on other occasions — notably
in the case of Manchuria — and those promises had not
been kept. With nations, as with individuals, prom-
ises count for little if sincerity is lacking.

This outline of the systematic spoliation of China
would be incomplete without some mention of the
Lao Hsi Kai incident, which, though it involved a
comparatively insignificant amount of territory, pro-
vides a glaring example of the rapacity, cynicism, and
injustice which have characterized certain European
nations in their treatment of China. Lao Hsi Kai is
the name of a district in the heart of Tientsin, the
greatest seaport of North China. Tientsin is only
about two hours by vail from Peking and is a trade
center of immense importance, with about one million
inhabitants. In it Great Britain, France, Italy, and
Japan have concessions.

On the night of October 19, 1916, a force of French
soldiery, led by the French charge d'affaires, who had
come down from Peking for the purpose, without the
slightest warning suddenly took possession of the Lao

CHINA 287

Hsi Kai district, consisting of 888 acres of wharfage,
streets, warehouses, shops, and dwellings in one of
the busiest parts of Tientsin. They arrested and im-
prisoned the Chinese soldiers on duty in the district,
substituted the tricolor for the flag of China, and in
the name of France formally annexed this territory to
the overseas dominions of the republic. And this,
mark you, at a time when France was engaged in a
life-and-death struggle with Germany, which had
done precisely the same thing, only on a larger scale,
in Belgium. The French did not seize Lao Hsi Kai
as a punitive measure, or for strategic purposes, or
from military necessity, or in payment of unsatisfied
claims. They seized it because they wanted it
and because they knew that China was powerless
to resist them. They could not even offer the
excuse that they took it in order to obtain the same
advantages as other nations, for they already pos-
sessed one of the most valuable and extensive con-
cessions in the city. When I questioned an official
of the French Legation as to the reason for the seizure
he naively explained that France had been asking for
Lao Hsi Kai for fifteen years, but that the Chinese
authorities had met her demands with procrastination
and evasion, whereupon she had decided to help her-
self to the territory in question. To my way of
•thinking, France's theft of Lao Hsi Kai was on the
same moral plane as stealing pennies from a cripple.

288 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

As things stand to-day, fully three quarters of all
the territory nominally included within the Chinese
Republic is under foreign influence, if not actually un-
der foreign control. Tibet is to all intents and purposes
a British protectorate, the government at Peking
exercising over it only a vicarious rule, and Britain
likewise considers the teeming valley of the Yangtze,
potentially the greatest market in all Asia, as within
her recognized sphere of interest. Hong Kong, Kow-
loon, and Weihaiwei bristle with British bayonets and
British guns. France has appropriated for her sphere
of interest the great, rich province of Yunnan and on
the coast of Kwantung Province has intrenched her-
self at Kwang-chau-wan. The flag of Japan flies over
the former German leasehold of Kiauchau and over
the former Russian territory on the Kwantung penin-
sula, while Japanese influence, in the form of Japa-
nese railways, banks, traders, and gendarmes, has been
extended over the whole of Manchuria and the fringes
of Mongolia. Small wonder that the American con-
cession-hunter, studying a map of the republic to dis-
cover some region where he could operate without en-
croaching on territory preempted by other nations,
finally exclaimed, "But where in hell is China?"

IV

At the opening of the year 1915 Europe found
itself in unparalleled turmoil. The triumphant

CHINA 289

legions of Germany had overrun Belgium and
had pushed deep into France and Russia. The
Allies were fighting with their backs to the
wall. Paris was in imminent danger, the Channel
ports were threatened, the sea-borne commerce of
Britain was being slowly throttled by the submarine
campaign. America, huge, inert, unprepared, was
apathetically looking on. China, with her incalculable
wealth in trade and natural resources, was isolated,
forgotten, helpless, without a friend on whom she
could count for assistance or support. In this situa-
tion Japan, whose settled policy had long had as its
object the domination of China and the hegemony of
Eastern Asia, 1 saw her golden opportunity. And
that opportunity she was quick to seize. On the
eighteenth of January, then, when Western ears were
deaf to everything save the cannon-roll in Flanders,
the Japanese minister at Peking presented to the
Chinese Government the famous Twenty-One De-
mands.

Because they afford concrete, indisputable evidence
of the sinister and predatory character of Japanese
policy at that time ; because they so clearly explain the
universal hatred and distrust which the people of
China have for Japan; and because they constitute
the most colossal blunder ever committed by the

1 This is not the policy of the present government of Japan. One
of the highest officials of the Empire said to me in December, 1991,
**TTie greatest blessing that could come to Japan would be a prosperous
and well-governed China." E. A. P.

240 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

Tokyo government, I feel justified, despite the many
times they have been quoted, in reproducing them in
full:

THS ORIGINAL TWENTY-ONE DEMANDS, AS PRESENTESHTO THE
CHINESE GOVERNMENT JANUARY 18> 1015

The Japanese government and the Chinese government,
being desirous of maintaining the general peace in Eastern
Asia and further strengthening the friendly relations and
good neighborhood existing between the two nations, agree
to the following articles:

Article I. The Chinese government engages to give full
assent to all matters upon which the Japanese government
may hereafter agree with the German government relating
to the disposition of all rights, interests, and concessions
which Germany, by virtue of treaties or otherwise, pos-
sesses in relation to the province of Shantung.

Article II. The Chinese government engages that within
the province of Shantung, and along its coast, no territory
or island will be ceded or leased to a third power under any
pretext.

Article III. The Chinese government consents to Japan's
building a railway from Chefoo or Lungkou to join the
Eiaochow-Tsinanfu Railway.

Article IV. The Chinese government engages, in the in-
terest of trade and for the residence of foreigners, to open
by herself as soon as possible certain important cities and
towns in the province of Shantung as commercial ports.
What places shall be opened are to be jointly decided upon
in a separate agreement,

n

The Japanese government and the Chinese government,
since the Chinese government has always acknowledged the

A FUNERAL PROCESSION I

I HIGH OFFICIAL

t
is

§5

CHINA 241

special position enjoyed by Japan in south Manchuria and
eastern inner Mongolia, agree to the following articles :

Article I. The two contracting parties mutually agree
that the term of lease of Port Arthur and Dalny and the
term of lease of the South Manchurian Railway and the
Antung-Mukden Railway shall be extended to the period of
ninety-nine years.

Article II. Japanese subjects in South Manchuria and
eastern inner Mongolia shall have the right to lease or own
land required either for erecting suitable buildings for trade
and manufacture or for farming.

Article III. Japanese subjects shall be free to reside and
travel in south Manchuria and eastern inner Mongolia and
to engage in business and in manufacture of any kind what-
soever.

Article IV. The Chinese government agrees to grant to
Japanese subjects the right of opening the mines in south
Manchuria and eastenfrviMongolia. As regards what mines
are to be opened, they shall be decided upon jointly.

Article V. The Chinese government agrees that in respect
of the (two) cases mentioned herein below the Japanese
government's consent shall be first obtained before such
action is taken :

(a) Whenever permission is granted to the subject of
a third power for the purpose of building a railway in
south Manchuria and eastern inner Mongolia.

(b) Whenever a loan is to be made with a third power
pledging the local taxes of south Manchuria and eastern
inner Mongolia.

Article VI. The Chinese government agrees that if the
Chinese government employs political, financial, or military
advisers or instructors in south Manchuria or eastern Mon-
golia, the Japanese government shall first be consulted.

Article VII. The Chinese government agrees that the
control and management of the Kirin-Changchun Railway *
shall be handed over to the Japanese government for a term

1 Tills relates to a branch line running from Changchun, the terminus
of the South Manchuria Railway, to Kirin, capital of the province of
fbe same name. The line is Important because it taps the Manchurian
coal-fields.

242 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

of ninety-nine years dating from the signing of this agree-
ment.

m

Japanese government and the Chinese government,
seeing that Japanese financiers and the Hanyehping Com-
pany * have close relations with each other at present, and
desiring that the common interests of the two nations shall
be advanced, agree to the following articles:

Article I. The two contracting parties mutually agree
that when the opportune moment arrives the Hanyehping
Company shall be made a joint concern of the two nations,
and they further agree that, without the previous consent of
Japan, China shall not by her own act dispose of the rights
and property of whatsoever nature of the said company nor
cause the said company to dispose freely of the same.

Article II. The Chinese government agrees that all mines
in the neighborhood of those owned by the Hanyehping
Company shall not be permitted, without the consent of the
said company, to be worked by other persons outside of

1 Tlie Hanyehping Company is a combination of three concerns — the
Hang Yang Steel £ Iron Works, the Tayeh Mines, and the Pinghsiang
Collieries. Its mills are at Hang Yang, one of the most important com-
mercial centers in the upper Yangtze valky. Hie company was orig-
inally purely a Chinese property, but in 1919 the whole property was
mortgaged to the Yokohama Specie Bank as security for a loan. As
a condition ot the loan it is provided that the auditor and certain tech-
nical experts employed by the company shall be Japanese and that the
total output of the Tayeh mines must be sold to the Japanese Govern-
ment Iron Works at rates to be fixed biennially, but much below
market prices. The bank has also acquired the preferential right to
advance further loans. Hie mines in Tayeh, according to a Japanese
official report, are almost inexhaustible and will produce 1,000,000 tons
annually for 700 years, the quality of the ore being as good as that
produced in Germany or the United States. In the districts surround-
ing the Tayeh mines there are many other mines— copper, lead, and
mine— which are not the property of the Hanyehping Company. It will
be noted that in Article II Japan demands that these mines shall not
be exploited without the consent of the company, which, being con-
trolled by the Yokohama Specie Bank, really means that they shall not
be exploited without the consent of Japan. This group of demands is
significant in that it illustrates Japan's intention to enter and control
a region in the valley of the Yangtze which Great Britain has always
considered within her own sphere of interest

CHINA 248

the said company ; and further agrees that if it is desired to
carry out any undertaking, which, it is apprehended, may
directly or indirectly affect the interests of the said com-
pany, the consent of the said company shall first be obtained.

IV

The Japanese government and the Chinese government,
with the object of effectively preserving the territorial in-
tegrity of China, agree to the following special article :

The Chinese government engages not to cede or lease to a
third power any harbor or bay or island along the coast of
China.

Article I. The Chinese central government shall employ
influential Japanese as advisers in political, financial, and
military affairs.

Article II. Japanese hospitals, churches, and schools in
the interior of China shall be granted the right of owning
land.

Article III. Inasmuch as the Japanese government and
the Chinese government have had many cases of dispute
between Japanese and Chinese police which caused no little
misunderstanding, it is for this reason necessary that the
police departments of important places (in China) shall be
jointly administered by Japanese and Chinese, or that the
police departments of these places shall employ numerous
Japanese, so that they may at the same time help to plan
for the improvement of the Chinese police service.

Article IV. China shall purchase from Japan a fixed
amount of the munitions of war (say, 50 per cent or more)
that are needed by the Chinese government, or there shall
be established in China a Sino- Japanese jointly worked
arsenal. Japanese technical experts are to be employed and
Japanese material to be purchased.

Article V. China agrees to grant to Japan the right of

244 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

constructing a railway connecting Wuchang with
and Nanchang, another line between Nanchang and Hang-
chow, and another between Nanchang and Chaochou. 1

Article VI. If China needs foreign capital to work mines,
build railways, and construct harbor-works (including
dockyards) in the province of Fukien, Japan shall be first
consulted.

Article VII. China agrees that Japanese subjects shall
have the right of missionary propaganda in Buddhist China.

It requires no profound knowledge of diplomacy
to recognize the sweeping and peculiarly sinister na-
ture of these demands. Their acceptance in their
original form would have been tantamount to an
admission by the Peking government that China was
a Japanese protectorate. The article demanding that
the police departments of important cities in China
be jointly administered by Japanese and Chinese
was as humiliating to Chinese pride, as flagrant an
infringement of Chinese sovereignty, as the clause
in the ultimatum presented by Austro-Hungary to
Serbia in the spring of 1914 demanding that Austria
be given joint control of the Serbian police system.
China's acceptance of the original Twenty-One De-
mands would have given Japan paramount influence
in many branches of the Chinese Government; it
would have placed the Chinese army and its materiel
under the control of the Japanese General Staff; it
would have transformed the occupied territory of

x These cities are in the provinces of Hupeh and Kiangsi. Such a
railway would have enabled Japan to obtain control of one of the most
populous and important districts in all China,

CHINA 245

Kiauchau into a wedge which would eventually have
opened the whole of Shantung to Japanese penetra-
tion; it would have added the maritime province of
Fukien to the Japanese spheres of interest; and it
would have permitted a small army of Japanese secret
agents, under the guise of missionaries and school-
teachers, to penetrate far into the hinterland of China,
where it would have been a simple matter for them
to have created "incidents" which would provide
Japan with excuses for still further aggression.

The publication of the Demands aroused a storm
of indignation and protest which swept China from
Yunnan to the Great Wall. Mass-meetings and
demonstrations were held everywhere. Even the
warring cliques and factions were unanimous in in-
sisting that the Demands must be rejected. Thus
bolstered up, the feeble and vacillating administra-
tion at Peking became so obstinate in its refusal to
consider the Fifth Group of the Demands that the
Japanese Government, apparently realizing that by
its greed it had outreached itself, caused them to be
withdrawn. It is worthy of remark in this connec-
tion that when Japan notified the Western Powers
of her demands on China, Japanese diplomacy exe-
cuted a characteristic manoeuver by omitting all men-
tion of the obnoxious Fifth Group, and when the
Powers were presented by China with a complete
copy of the Demands, as they had been presented to
President Yuan Shih-kai, the authenticity of the

246 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

Fifth Group was denied by the Japanese Foreign
Office. Concerning this unblushing attempt at de-
ception as eminent a Japanese as Baron Hayashi,
later Japanese Ambassador to England, is quoted
as having said:

"When Viscount Kato sent China a note contain-
ing five groups, and then sent to England what pur-
ported to be a copy of his note to China, and that copy
only contained four of the groups and omitted the
fifth altogether, which was directly a breach of the
agreement contained in the Anglo-Japanese Alliance,
he did something which I can no more explain than
you can. Outside of the question of probity involved,
his action was unbelievably foolish." *

As the Peking government remained obdurate
even after the withdrawal of Group V, being par-
ticularly opposed to acceptance of the articles con-
firming Japan in her possession of Kiauchau, Japan,
on May 7, 1915, presented China with an ultimatum*
The attitude of Tokio in regard to the restoration of
the territory captured from Germany was unequiv-
ocally expressed in the paragraph which read: "The
Imperial Japanese Government, in taking Kiauchau,
made immense sacrifices in blood and money. There-
fore, after taking the place, there is not the least
obligation ... to return the place to China.'*

For four months China had held off Japan by de-
lay and evasion, hoping against hope that aid would

iM I%e Far East Unveiled," by Frederick Coleman.

CHINA 247

be forthcoming from Europe or America. But no
help came, and Japan having consented to withdraw
the obnoxious Fifth Group (or, more accurately, to
treat its provisions in "Notes to be Exchanged") and
having somewhat modified the other four groups,
Peking finally gave way and on May 9 the agree-
ment was signed.

Two days later, however, tardy help arrived from
the United States in the form of identical notes ad-
dressed by the United States Government to China
and to Japan. The note to Japan read :

In view of the circumstances of the negotiations which
have taken place and which are now pending between the
Government of Japan and the Government of China and of
the agreements which have been reached as a result thereof,
the Government of the United States has the honor to notify
the Government of the Japanese Empire that it cannot
recognize any agreement or undertaking which has been
entered into or which may be entered into between the
Governments of Japan and China impairing the treaty
rights of the United States and its citizens in China, the
political or territorial integrity of the Republic of China,
or the International policy relative to China commonly
known as the Open Door policy.

The firm tone of the American note served to tem-
porarily check Japanese aggression, but its salutary
effect was largely undone by a note which was ex-
changed on November 15, 1917, between Viscount
Ishii, who had been sent by his government on a spe-
cial mission to the United States, and the American
Secretary of State, Mr. Lansing. This note con-

248 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

stitutes what is commonly known as the Lansing-
Ishii Agreement. It says:

The Governments of Japan and of the United States
recognize that territorial propinquity creates special rela-
tions between countries, and consequently the United States
recognizes that Japan has special interests in China, par-
ticularly in that part to which her possessions are con-
tiguous.

The territorial sovereignty of China nevertheless remains
unimpaired, and the Government of the United States has
every confidence in the repeated assurance of the Imperial
Japanese Government that, while geographical position gives
Japan such special interests, it has no desire to discriminate
against the trade of other nations or to disregard the com-
mercial rights heretofore granted by China in the treaties
with other nations.

The Governments of Japan and the United States deny
that they have any purpose of infringing in any way the
independence or territorial integrity of China, and they
declare furthermore that they always adhere to the principle
of the so-called "open door," or equal opportunity of com-
merce and industry in China,

Moreover, they mutually declare that they are opposed
to the acquisition by any Government of any special rights
or privileges that would affect the independence or terri-
torial integrity of China, or that would deny to the subjects
or citizens of any country the full enjoyment of equal
opportunity in the commerce and industry of China*

Though the Lansing-Ishii Agreement reiterated
the principle of the Open Door, it was in one point
substantially different from preceding notes ex-
changed between the United States and Japan (par-
ticularly, the Root-Takahira Agreement of 1909)
in that it recognized that Japan possessed "special

CHINA 249

interests" in China. Whatever may have been Presi-
dent Wilson's intentions in the matter, whatever men-
tal reservations Mr. Lansing may have made in dis-
cussing the wording with Viscount Ishii, the effect
of the agreement, once it was published, was to re-
verse America's traditional policy toward China. By
recognizing special rights for one country, Mr. Lan-
sing abandoned the' principle of equal rights for all.
The commitment was an evil one, and no one has
ever explained why it was made. It was virtually
repudiated, however, by Mr. Hughes shortly after
he became secretary of state in 1921, when he reaf-
firmed the policy of the Open Door.

China, as you will see by referring to the map, is
crisscrossed by a network of railways, completed,
under construction, or in contemplation. Sentimental
persons have referred to these railways as "paths
of progress," but they might more fittingly be de-
scribed as bonds of servitude. For it should be under-
stood that railways in China, unlike those in other
countries, are not purely commercial enterprises. In
most countries the construction of a railway means
the acquirement of a right-of-way, the laying of rails,
the building of stations and workshops, and the op-
eration of trains — nothing more. But not so in China.

250 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

There, at least until very recently, railway building
has been primarily a political enterprise, the railways
themselves having been utilized by the foreign na-
tions which supplied the funds for their construction
as instruments for military aggression and political
coercion. In the majority of cases the railways of
China are financed by foreign or other institutions
with the approval and support of their respective
governments and subject to their control. Chinese
railway concessions, moreover, have frequently car-
ried with them extraordinary commercial and political
privileges, and monopolies such as the right of ex-
ploiting the mines and forests in the territory trav-
ersed by the railway ; maintaining armed forces along
the line, ostensibly for its protection against bandits ;
and in some cases (notably, in Shantung) the estab-
lishment of civil administrative centers. Such rail-
ways, it will be realized, are far more of a liability
than an asset to a country as weak and disorganized
as China.

The most important of these "political" railways
are:

1* The Chinese Eastern Railway, with a total mile-
age, including branches, of 1275 miles, which runs
from Manchouli (Manchuria), on the Siberian-Chi-
nese frontier, straight across Manchuria, via Harbin
(whence a section runs southward to Changchun) to
Suifenho (Pogranitchnaia) , on the border of the Rus-

CHINA 251

sian Maritime Province. This line is of immense
commercial and strategic importance in that it forms
a "cut-off" for the Trans-Siberian system, shortening
the distance between Moscow and Vladivostok by
several hundred miles. It effects junctions at Man-
chouli with the Trans-Siberian to Europe, at Suifenho
with the continuation of the Trans-Siberian to Vladi-
vostok, and at Changchun with the South Manchuria
Railway to Mukden. It forms, in short, a Chinese
section of the Trans-Siberian route from Europe to
the Pacific. Built by a Russian syndicate, with the
full power of control originally vested in the Russian
minister of finance, it has been occupied by Japanese
troops since the collapse of the Russian constitutional
government, and is to-day under the control of Japan.
2. The South Manchuria Railway, with a total
mileage of 697 miles, which runs from Changchun
(the southern terminus of the Chinese Eastern Rail-
way) to Mukden, where it splits into three sections:
one running southwest to Newchwang, where it con-
nects with the Chinese Government Railways for
Peking; another section running in a southerly direc-
tion, down the Kwantung peninsula, to Dalny, where
it connects with the short branch line to Port Arthur;
and the third section running southeast to Antung,
where it links up with the Korean system. Prior to
the Russo-Japanese War it was part of the Chinese
Eastern Railway and was controlled by Russia,
but by the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth the

252 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

section running from Mukden to Changchun,
as well as the branches from Mukden to Antung
and Mukden to Port Arthur, was transferred by
Russia to Japan. Under the terms of the agreement
between Russia and China the latter had the right
to redeem this line thirty-six years after it was opened
to traffic, but after its transfer to Japan the Japanese
Government forced Peking to extend the term for
redemption to ninety-nine years, so that China can-
not obtain possession of the property until 2002.

3. The Shantung (Tsingtau-Tsinanfu) Railway.
This line, of which about 300 miles has been opened
to traffic, was built by German capitalists upon Ger-
many's acquirement of the lease of Kiauchau Bay,
at the extremity of the Shantung peninsula. Start-
ing from Tsingtau, it runs westward across the prov-
ince of Shantung to Tsinanfu, on the Yellow River,
where it effects a junction with the Pukow-Tientsin
Railway, which forms a section of the trunk-line from
Shanghai to Peking. This railway, together with the
accompanying concessions to exploit the mines within
ten miles of the line and to prospect for minerals in
certain specified areas outside the railway zone, was
transferred by Germany to Japan under the pro-
visions of the Treaty of Versailles.

4. The Yunnan Railway. This line, which is an
extension of France's system in Indo-China, runs
on French territory from Haiphong to Laokay, and

CHINA 258

on Chinese territory from Laokay to Yunnanfu, the
capital and chief city of Yunnan, the southernmost
and one of the richest provinces of the republic. Its
total mileage is 533 miles, of which slightly more than
half is within the borders of China. This concession,
like those for the Manchurian and the Shantung sys-
tems, carries with it mining and other valuable priv-
ileges.

All the above-mentioned railway concessions are im-
mune from any interference by the Chinese Govern-
ment until the dates fixed for their redemption, and
all of them were granted under pressure from the
powers concerned, who demanded them not with the
motive of developing the country, but for the pur-
pose of strengthening their positions in certain parts
of it, so that they might the more readily transform
their spheres of influence into colonial possessions in
the event of China being partitioned.

Thanks to these railway holdings and the conces-
sions which accompany them, Japan is to-day to all
intents and purposes, mistress of Manchuria and of
Shantung. In Yunnan French influence is predomi-
nant, though it is only fair to say that they have not
utilized their railway concession to undermine Chinese
sovereignty in the south as the Japanese have done
in the north. The railways of Middle China, par-
ticularly those in the valley of the Yangtze, are, gen-
erally speaking, under British financial control,

254 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

though here again it must be admitted that Great
Britain has rarely utilized them to advance her politi-
cal designs.

In the railway loans signed prior to 1908 China
consented to the lending banks exercising a large
measure of supervision in regard to construction and
expenditure. In every case the lending banks in-
sisted on selecting the chief engineer, who was charged
not only with the construction of the line but with its
operation after it was built. Hence, though these
lines are nominally the property of the Chinese Gov-
ernment, China is not in full control of them and, if
she wishes to take any measures not provided for in
the original agreements, she has first to obtain the per-
mission of the corporations representing the investors.
In the railway loans floated since 1908, however,
foreign control, though by no means eliminated, is
greatly diminished, though even in the later agree-
ments it is stipulated that the chief engineers shall be
foreigners and that expenditures shall be controlled
by auditors appointed by the lending banks.

Ever since China floated her first foreign loan she
has been a happy hunting-ground for "the powers
that prey." English, French, Russian, German, Aus-
trian, Dutch, Swiss, Belgian, and Japanese investors
and concession-hunters jostled and snarled at each
other in their attempts to reach the Chinese trough.
At one period there was such a scramble among the
Treaty Powers to lend money to China that there

CHINA 255

were not enough loans to go round, The almost in-
credible selfishness which characterized the attitude
of the European nations toward China is strikingly
set forth by Miss Ellen LaMotte in "Peking Dust":

When a European Power finds a piece of rich, juicy ter-
ritory which has not already been appropriated by some one
else, it simply proclaims it a sphere of influence, notifies
the Chinese government to that effect, and forces it — as
often as not by threats of one kind and another — to ratify
the transaction by a treaty. After that China cannot
even build a railway in that sphere without the permission
of the ruling Power; she cannot dismiss or appoint officials;
even the police are, as likely as not, officered by Europeans,
Do you appreciate that in 1916, when the European war was
at its height, England, France, and Russia lodged protests
with the Chinese Government on the ground that the railway
loan which it had recently contracted with American bank-
ers for the construction of a railway from Fengchen to
Ninghsi trespassed upon the preferential rights of those
Powers to build railways? In this affair France also acted
for Belgium. Think of it! China needing a railway, an
American firm willing to build it, and England, France,
Russia, and even poor little Belgium forbidding her to build
it, although they were themselves unable to help her finan-
cially! Such incidents would be ludicrous, were they not
so tragic.

Now if China is to be saved, such conditions cannot
be permitted to continue. A stop must be put to
the jealous rivalries of those foreign nations who,
through the instrumentality of loans, have been cal-
lously exploiting the country for their own selfish
ends. The realization by the foreign banking
groups that if China was not to be irretrievably

266 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

wrecked these abuses must be abolished and interna-
tional cooperation substituted for international com-
petition resulted in the signing of the Consortium on
October 15, 1920. The Consortium is an agreement
to which the banking groups of the United States,
Great Britain, France, and Japan are parties, whose
declared purpose is to assist China in developing her
railways and public utilities. As each banking group
signed with the approval of its government, the Con-
sortium, though in some respects a private contract,
is, in effect, an international agreement.

The f ramers of the Consortium recognized the ob-
stacles in the path of rehabilitating China. First
of all, there was China's deep-seated distrust of
the foreigner — the result of years of coercion,
intrigue, injustice, and oppression — coupled with the
fear that the Consortium would prove to be only a
stepping-stone to some form of international control
of China's finances. Then there was the fact
that every politician in China, irrespective of
party, violently opposed the Consortium because
he saw in it a curtailment of lucrative oppor-
tunities for graft. And finally, it was necessary to
overcome the mutual jealousies and suspicions of the
foreign capitalists themselves. The Consortium be-
came, therefore, an ordinance of mutual self-denial.
Unselfishness and cooperation are at the bottom of
the agreement. There is to be no further crowding
or jostling at the Chinese trough. There is to be a

CHINA 257

common holding company, as it were, with each set
of shareholders represented on the board of direc-
tors. In short, the Consortium applies the Open
Door principle to the financial problems of the repub-
lic. China is to be loaned money for her legitimate
needs, but henceforth it is to be loaned wisely and dis-
criminatingly, and steps will be taken to see that
it is used for the purposes intended, instead of being
diverted, as heretofore, into the pockets of the poli-»
ticians and military chieftains. The Consortium has
been described as a financial league of nations whose
decisions, based on justice and forbearance, are ex-
pected to prevent China from being in the future a
bone of warlike contention and which will at the same
time guarantee her fair treatment from all. I might
add, however, that the Chinese themselves are by no
means as optimistic about the Consortium as are its
American promoters. Nor is this at all surprising.
Their previous experiences with foreign financiers
have made them "gun-shy."

If the foreign powers are really sincere in their
protestations that they wish to set China upon her
feet financially, if they are genuinely desirous of re-
storing her self-respect, their first step is plain. She
should be permitted to regulate her own customs
duties. Do you realize, I wonder, that under existing
conditions if China wishes to raise or lower the duty
on a single imported article, she must first obtain the
permission of thirteen nations? And if those nations

258 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

that do not produce the article in question consent to
having the duty raised on that item, those nations that
do produce that article may be counted upon to refuse
their consent. The United States and Great Britain,
for example, would probably interpose no objections
to the Chinese Government raising the duties on im-
ported wines, for the reason that they are not wine*
producing countries and therefore their exports would
not be affected, whereas France and Italy, both of
which export great quantities of wine, might be ex-
pected to offer the most strenuous objections. On
the other hand, if China desired to raise the duty on
breadstuff s, France and Italy, not being grain-grow-
ing countries, might give their assent, while the
United States and Great Britain, with their vast
grain-fields, would almost certainly oppose such a
change in the tariff.

As a result of this selfish attitude on the part of
the treaty states, China, with its three hundred mil-
lions of people, rich as she is or as she might become,
enjoys a wholly inadequate revenue, for she is per-
mitted to levy only a nominal tariff — five per cent,
ad valorem. She has no encouragement, therefore,
to develop her industries, for the treaty states will
not permit her to erect a tariff wall for their protec-
tion. Instead, they allow her just enough revenue
to return to them in the form of Boxer indemnities
and interest on their loans. When all is said and
done, the financial regeneration of China is not due

CHINA 259

nearly so much to the corruption and incompetency
of her own officials as it is to the supreme selfishness
of those foreign nations which have her in their power.

The principal sources of revenue of the Chinese
Government are the land tax, excise, li-kin, the salt
duty, and the maritime customs. In order that you
may understand why they do not produce sufficient
revenue, it is necessary for me to briefly sketch the
curious, and in some instances archaic, methods em-
ployed in their collection. Let us take the land taxes
first. These are usually collected by the magistrates,
who, however, sometimes delegate their collection to
the village elders. They are then forwarded to the
provincial governors, or tnchuns, who, instead of pass-
ing them on to the central government in Peking, in-
variably retain them to defray the expenses of the
provincial administration, the chief item in which is
usually the upkeep of the large "personal" armies to
which I have already made reference. Thus, though
the land taxes of the republic produce a very consider-
able sum, only an insignificant part of it reaches Pe-
king for the use of the state. This is likewise true of
the collection of the excise duties and of li-kin, a sort
of inland customs duty assessed on goods in transit
and comparable in certain respects to the octroi
charges levied by various European municipalities.
From time to time the Peking government has made
attempts to collect the internal revenues direct, but

260 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

owing to its weakness in dealing with the provincial
governors its tax-gatherers have usually returned to
the capital empty-handed. To tell the truth, the of-
ficials sent out from Peking usually receive about as
much consideration in the provinces as United States
internal revenue agents are accorded in the "moon-
shine" districts of the South.

The trade in salt is a government monopoly. Only
licensed merchants are permitted to deal in it, and
the importation of foreign salt is forbidden by the
treaties with foreign nations. For the purpose of salt
administration China is divided into some seven or
eight zones, each of which has its own source of pro-
duction. The boundaries of these zones are carefully
defined and salt produced in one cannot be consigned
to or sold in another. There are great variations in
price between the various zones, but the customer is
not permitted to buy his salt in the cheapest market.
He can only buy from the licensed merchants in his
own zone, who in turn are debarred from procuring
supplies except at the depots in their respective dis-
tricts. Conveyance from one zone to another is con-
sidered as smuggling, and salt thus transported is
liable to confiscation. Duty is levied under two heads,
the first being a duty proper, payable on the issue of
salt from the depot, the second being U-kin levied in
transit or at the place of destination. As the
total consumption of salt for all China is estimated
at nearly 1,500,000 tons a year, it will be seen that

CHINA 261

the salt duties form a very important source of
revenue. 1 When China floated the Currency Re-
form, Crisp, and Reorganization Loans in 1911-12-13,
she pledged as security the revenues from the salt
tax, the administration of which — known as the Salt
Gabelle — was placed under a Chinese chief inspector
and a foreign associate chief inspector (British), who
are assisted by a numerous staff of foreigners.

The Chinese Maritime Customs was organized at
Shanghai in 1854. The Taiping rebels, who had over-
run nearly the whole of China, then being in posses-
sion of the native city, the collection of customs dues
was placed in the hands of foreigners. This de-
veloped into a permanent institution, the European
staff being mainly British. But upon the proclama-
tion of the republic a decree was issued, in conformity
with the new national sentiment, appointing Chinese
commissioners to administer the customs. As, how-
ever, the whole of the customs revenue was (and
still is) pledged to foreign bondholders and absorbed
in the service of the several loans, the foreign powers
interested felt that to take the customs adminis-
tration out of the hands of Sir Robert Hart, who
had been inspector-general since 1863, would seriously
imperil the efficiency and integrity for which the
service had become famous. The British Government
promptly protested against the decree placing the
customs under native supervision, pointing out that

1 The revenue from the salt tax in 1916 was about $38,000,000.

262 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

the continuation of the established system had been
stipulated in the loan agreements of 1896 and 1898.
The original understanding, which provided that
China should employ a Briton at the head of the serv-
ice as long as the trade of Great Britain exceeds in
Aggregate that of any other treaty state, was there-
upon reaffirmed. 1

The staff of the maritime customs now numbers
about 7200, of whom nearly one fourth are foreigners.
It should be added that the foreign members of the
customs service have served China with the utmost loy-
alty, having shown no bias in favor of their own coun-
tries. All the posts in the service, save only that of
inspector-general, are open to candidates from all the
treaty states, ranging in commercial importance from
Great Britain to Peru. Barring the Salt Gabelle,
the maritime customs is the one department of finance
in China which is managed with honesty and effi-
ciency, this being due to the fact that it is under for-
eign control. It collects all the duties leviable under
the treaties on the foreign trade of China, as well as
all the duties on the coasting trade so far as carried
on by vessels of foreign build, whether Chinese or
foreign-owned. But it does not control the trade in
native craft, the so-called junk trade, the duties on
which are still collected by the officials of the native
customs houses.

* Sir Robert Hart died in 1911. He was succeeded as inspector-general
by Sir Francis Aglen.

CHINA 268

So long as the loans and indemnities secured by
mortgages on customs receipts remain unredeemed
by China it will prove exceedingly difficult to induce
the foreign powers, who are frankly distrustful of
the Chinese in financial matters, to consent to restor-
ing the administration of the customs to the Chinese
themselves. During recent years, indeed, when the
country has been almost constantly in turmoil, the
customs receipts have not even been remitted to the
Chinese Government, but have been deposited by the
inspector-general in foreign banks in Shanghai, Can-
ton, and Tientsin in order to meet the annual loan
charges, the surplus then being remitted to Peking.
Long and costly experience with sticky-fingered
Chinese officials has taught the foreigner to take no
chances.

In concluding this brief survey of the curious
and anomalous tariff arrangements which obtain in
China, I repeat that, in my judgment, the prompt
restoration to China of the right to fix her own tariffs
is dictated by wisdom no less than by justice. 1 The
only argument that has been advanced in favor
of retaining the existing five per cent, tariff is that,
since the customs receipts have been mortgaged for
indemnities and loans, an alteration in the schedules
might conceivably result in diminishing the yield,
instead of augmenting it, thereby endangering the

1 Measures to this effect were agreed to by the Powers represented
at the Washington Conference of 1931-93.

264 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

security of the foreign investors. But it seems to me
that by permitting China to fix her own tariff she
could be required to give a guarantee that the total
revenues from the customs would not fall below
the amount required to pay the principal and interest
on the debts and loans thus secured. What I have
said above should not be interpreted as meaning that
I believe in doing away, at least for the present, with
the existing customs administration. If China is well
advised, she will pocket her pride and permit the di-
rection of her customs to remain in the honest and
efficient hands of the present administration until
she has had time to build up an equally honest and
efficient organization of her own.

VI

China is at present passing through a period of
reconstruction not dissimilar to that experienced by
the United States during the decade succeeding the
close of the Civil War. Just as we struggled to free
ourselves from the intrigue, corruption, and political
chaos that so nearly overwhelmed the republic in the
years that followed Appomattox, so China is strug-
gling to-day. There is the same embittered, unrec-
onciled South and the same politically dominant
North. The "carpet-bag" rulers of the post-bellum
South have their Chinese counterparts in the corrupt

CHINA 265

and tyrannical tuchtms; the brigands and demobilized
soldiery who are terrorizing portions of China to-day
correspond to the "bad men" and gun-fighters who
terrorized our own West during reconstruction days.
And the ruthless exploitation of China's natural re-
sources by foreign financial groups finds a fairly close
parallel in the exploitation of the Pacific Coast states
by American railway interests. We, however, were
permitted to manage our own affairs, to bring order
out of chaos, harmony out of strife, without interfer-
ence by foreign nations who sought to prolong the
period of internal dissension in order to serve their
own selfish ends. But not so in the case of China. She
has not been left free to work out her own salvation.
She has been systematically hampered by unjust re-
strictions and limitations; she has been forced to ac-
cept from foreign nations so-called "advice" which in
reality has been dictation. Though in theory she is
a sovereign state, an independent nation, she does not
control her own finances, her own railways, her own
tariff, her own customs, her own army, her own sea-
ports, or large areas of her own territory. When all
is said and done, China is, like Charles of Austria, an
international prisoner.

I have already explained how by means of conces-
sions, leases, and other privileges extracted from
China under duress Japan has made herself the vir-
tual mistress of Manchuria and Shantung. I have
traced the steps whereby Great Britain has attained

266 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

commercial supremacy in the Valley of the Yangtze
and political supremacy in Tibet. I have shown how
France has brought within her sphere of influence the
great province of Yunnan. I have made it clear
how all three of these powers, by intrenching them-
selves in the leased territories of Kwantung,
Weihaiwei, Kiauchau, Kowloon, and Kwang-chau-
wan, have subjected to the menace of their guns and
fleets the whole coast of China. And I have outlined
the procedure whereby the Great Powers, through in-
demnities and loans, have obtained control of China's
finances. But these, though the most important, are
by no means the only infringements on the republic's
sovereignty. Were you aware, for example, that a
foreigner living in China is as much under the law of
his own country as though he were within its borders?
By virtue of the extraterritorial rights enjoyed by the
treaty powers, he is beyond the reach of the Chinese
law. The treaty with the United States explicitly
states :

Citizens of the United States (in China), either on
shore or in any merchant vessel, who may insult, trou-
ble, or wound the persons, or injure the property, of
Chinese, or commit any improper act in China, shall
be punished by the Consul or other public functionary
thereto authorized, according to the laws of the United
States.

And there are other rights, powers, and privileges
which the foreign nations have arrogated to them-

CHINA 267

selves for which there is now little justification. The
foreign legations in Peking, for example, are sur-
rounded by ramparts, defended by artillery and ma-
chine-guns, and garrisoned by troops — miniature
fortresses, in fact, set down in the heart of China's
capital. No Chinese may walk on that portion of the
Tartar Wall which commands the legation quarter,
and a somewhat similar prohibition is enforced on
Shameen, the island on which is Canton's European
settlement. Japan has introduced the pillar-boxes
and postmen of the Imperial Japanese Post into
every district of Peking, as well as in numerous other
Chinese cities, and even the United States maintains
at Tientsin and Shanghai its extraterritorialized
post-offices which compete with the and underbid the
Chinese postal service. For upward of one thousand
miles China's greatest waterway, the Yangtze River,
is patrolled by American and British gunboats; a
battalion of American infantry is stationed in Tien-
tsin; the Japanese maintain a garrison as far inland
as Hankow; and a considerable part of the province
of Shantung is under Japanese civil administration.
In short, China is to-day a country under foreign
occupation.

Now it is obviously impracticable to abruptly abol-
ish all of these powers and privileges, even if the con-
sent of the foreign nations which are directly inter-
ested could be obtained. Such a proceeding would
not be in the best interest of the Chinese themselves.

268 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

But there are certain things which should and must
be done if the foreign powers are sincere in their pro-
testations that they wish to rehabilitate China. If
they are really desirous of making the Chinese Re-
public an independent nation in fact as well as in
name, one of their first steps should be the restora-
tion of the territories which they have leased, or have
otherwise alienated, in China proper 1 — the Japanese
withdrawing from Shantung, the British from Wei-
haiwei and the Kowloon peninsula (opposite Hong
Kong) , the Portuguese from Macao, and the French
from Kwang-chau-wan. Though abstract justice
doubtless also demands the evacuation of Fort Arthur
and Dalny by Japan, and the evacuation of Hong
Kong by Great Britain, I do not think that such
action is likely to be realized for many years to come,
if at all. The two powers in question have expended
vast sums on these great strongholds, they play highly
important parts in their respective schemes of national
defense, and I can no more conceive of their consent-
ing to abandon them than I can of the United States
consenting to withdraw from the Canal Zone.

The restoration of the leased territories should be
followed by the abolition of all "spheres of influence"
in China proper, and eventually, when political con-
ditions justify it, in the outlying territories — Man-
churia, Mongolia, and Tibet. But it will be time
enough to discuss the renunciation by Great Britain

1 That is, the China of the Eighteen Province*. See Appendix.

CHINA 269

of her political predominancy in Tibet, and the sur-
render by Japan of her "special interests" in Man-
churia and Inner Mongolia, when China has shown
herself capable of establishing and maintaining a
stable and efficient central government, strong
enough to properly administer those troubled regions.
For Japan to withdraw her troops from Manchuria
under existing conditions would merely add to the
power of Chang Tso-lin and his fellow-bandits and
increase the prevailing unrest and disorder.

The next step should be the unification of all rail-
way concessions in the republic under a Chinese
board patterned on the lines of the board of the
United States Steel Corporation, but with the neces-
sary foreign financial control. A large measure of
fiscal independence should be restored to China by
permitting her to fix her own tariffs, though, as I have
already remarked, I should question the advisability,
from the standpoint of China's own best interests, in
doing away with the present international customs
administration, at least for some years to come.

The extraterritorial rights at present enjoyed by
the treaty powers should be abolished as soon as China
has modernized her prisons, reformed her civil and
criminal codes, and organized a judiciary capable of
enforcing those codes with impartiality and justice. 1

a Tne nations represented at the Washington Conference agreed, in
December, 1991, to send a commission to China for the purpose of draw-
ing up a plan for judicial reform as a preliminary to the abolition of
extraterritorial privileges.

270 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

Nor, in view of the development of aircraft and means
of communication and of the fact that the capital is
less than one hundred miles from the sea coast, does
there appear to be any further necessity for the main-
tenance of foreign troops in Peking. The postal
services maintained in China by the United States,
Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan should also
come to an end. And finally, there should be com-
plete abolition of all the shadowy claims, advisor$hips,
and other petty but irritating encroachments on Chi-
nese sovereignty which have grown out of concessions,
leased territories, and railway rights. Thus reestab-
lished in possession of her own house, China should
be given an opportunity to set it in order without be-
ing hampered by foreign interference.

Now I am perfectly aware that certain of the meas-
ures which I have outlined above for the restoration
of China to the status of a sovereign state would fall
far short of satisfying the Chinese and their friends.
They insist that the powers must betake themselves
from Chinese soil forthwith, bag and baggage. They
strenuously object to any form of foreign political or
financial control. They demand the restoration not
only of the foreign-occupied territories in China
proper, but likewise of Port Arthur, Dalny, and
Hong Kong. Considering the question purely from
the ethical viewpoint, there can be no denying that
the Chinese are fully justified in these demands. The
difficulty lies in the fact that they are not possible of

CHINA 271

realization, while those which I have outlined, in all
probability, are. And, when all is said and done, it
is a question of practical politics that we are discuss-
ing. Everything considered, it seems to me that
for a hungry person even three quarters of a loaf is
considerably better than none.

But if China is to obtain even a portion of her
demands, she must herself be prepared to initiate and
carry through wide reforms, to make many changes
in the conduct of her national affairs. Though she
possesses to an altogether extraordinary degree the
sympathy and liking of other peoples, she does not
possess their confidence. She has disappointed and
irritated them too often. Her interminable internal
dissensions, the weakness, inefficiency, and corruption
which have characterized her various administrations,
her dilatoriness in meeting her financial obligations,
her failure to put down tyranny and brigandage — all
these have weakened her position among the nations.
So she must begin by wiping the slate clean.
The North and South must sink their differ-
ences and wholeheartedly unite in the establishment
of an honest, efficient, and stable central govern-
ment. The corrupt and tyrannical tuchuns must
be stripped of their power and their armies dis-
banded, the great sums required for their upkeep
being devoted to the construction of roads throughout
the country, the completion of the trunk-lines, and
the amelioration of the peasantry. And lastly, the

272 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

whole of China must be opened to foreigners for pur-
poses of travel, residence, and commerce.

If China will do these things, and if she and the for-
eign powers will exercise mutual tolerance, forbear-
ance, unselfishness, and charity in dealing with one
another, I am convinced that the republic will become
a respected and prosperous member of the family of
nations in a much nearer future than most people sup-
pose. If these things are not done, China will con-
tinue in a state of chaos, a bone of international con-
tention, a perpetual menace to the peace of the world.
But she will never be conquered, her people will never
be assimilated by those of some other nation. Make
no mistake about that. For, when all is said and done,
China is an anvil which, by mere passive resistance,
will eventually wear out every hammer that beats
upon it. 1

1 See Appendix for text of Chinese treaties approved by the Powers
at the Washington Conference of 1991-09.

. .i 1?*..,-: " ^n r . 4"; i ; ,*> . Xi » .. i > W**" * ' "**»;*

** *

■ ' * .

* » ' . * ...

* •

PART IV

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

WE are an inconsistent and contradictory peo-
ple. Though we boast of being a world
power, in reality our national horizons are Sandy
Hook and the Golden Gate, the Great Lakes and the
Rio Grande. Though the most altruistic motives
which ever inspired a nation have led us to assume
the white man's burden for fifteen millions of people
in the Philippines, Guam, Samoa, Hawaii, Alaska,
the Canal Zone, Haiti, Santo Domingo, the Virgin
Islands, and Porto Rico, we know and care far less
about their needs and their problems then we do
about those of many countries in which we have only
the most vicarious interest. Though our colonial
responsibilities have gradually increased until they
stretch from the Caribbean to the China Seas;
though we are steadily expanding, for the protection
of our position at Panama, over all the smaller states
of the Central American seaboard, we have neither a
colonial office nor a colonial policy. To paraphrase
the lines of Kipling:

273

274 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

We think oar country still

Is Broadway and Beacon Hill.

Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since
George Dewey, his commodore's pennant flaunting
from the Olympias masthead, blazed his way into
Manila Bay, sunk the Spanish fleet, and gave to the
United States a colonial empire. It would seem that
that was ample time for the American people to
become tolerably familiar with the politics, prob-
lems, and potentialities of the great archipelago of
which, through the fortunes of war, we unexpectedly
found ourselves the guardians, yet the discouraging
fact remains that, despite all that has been said and
written cm the subject, the average American knows
far less about the Philippine Islands, over which
floats the American flag, than he does about Mexico
or Ireland or Germany or Russia. It is to be pre-
sumed that you who read these pages possess intelli-
gence and information above the average, yet how
many of you, I wonder, have other than the haziest
conception of what the Philippines are like? You
conceive them, no doubt, — when you think of them
at all, — as jungle-covered, palm-fringed islands set
down in a turquoise sea beneath a merciless sun. You
think of the natives as reformed head-hunters dwell-
ing in huts of bamboo thatched with rtipa and living
on dog-meat, for such was the impression you ob-
tained from the Igorot villages at the St. Louis and
San Francisco expositions. You know, of course,

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 275

that Manila is in certain respects an up-to-date city
— you have gathered this from the pictures in the
Sunday supplements and the magazines — but you
also assume that it is cursed with almost unendurable
heat, because the people in the pictures are wearing
white suits and straw hats. You are aware that the
chief products of the islands are Manila hemp, popu-
larly associated with executions, and cocoanut-oil,
which is used for beautifying the complexion, and you
have heard stories to the effect that the Sultan of
Sulu presents pearls of great price to those who visit
him. Were you asked to enumerate a few well-
known Filipinos, you would almost certainly name
Emilio Aguinaldo and you might add Manuel
Quezon. That, with a few other odds and ends of
information, constitute the sum total of the average
American's knowledge of the Philippine Islands.

Perhaps you did not realize, however, that the
land area of the archipelago is considerably greater
than that of England, Scotland, and Ireland put to-
gether and that its population is larger than that of
the state of New York. Were you aware that the
distance from Cape Bojeador, in northern Luzon, to
Tawi Tawi, in the Sulu group, is equal to the entire
width of the United States from Canada to the Gulf
of Mexico? Your imagination doubtless pictures a
group of low-lying islands, like those you have read
of in South Sea stories, covered with dense and steam-
ing jungles, so it may be something of a revelation

270 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

to learn that the Philippines Juwe no less thatfTialf
a dozen mountains which are higher than any peaks in
the United States east of the Rockies, that they have
at least three rivers which are as long as the Hudson,
and that two thirds of their surface is covered not
with steaming jungle, but with splendid forests in
which hard woods abound, some of the mountains
being clothed with pines. You think of the Philip-
pines being in the tropics, as they are, yet I imagine
that you will be surprised to learn that the average
maximum summer heat of Manila is considerably
lower than that of New York. If you have read the
accounts of the voyages of the early explorers you are
aware that Cebu was a flourishing city when the only
settlement on Manhattan Island was an Indian vil-
lage, and that Manila had been founded for half a
century when the Pilgrims set foot on the Plymouth
shore. Nor do I need to remind you that the Fil-
ipinos are the only Christian race in Asia. And
finally, did you ever pause to think that the nation
which holds the Philippines is the traffic policeman at
the Broadway and Forty-Second Street of the
world's commerce, for the archipelago lies squarely
athwart every trade route of the Farther East, our
great naval base at Cavite being only sixteen hours
by a fast destroyer from Hong Kong, fifty hours from
Singapore, and about the same from Nagasaki?

The average American's lack of knowledge about
the largest and richest of our insular possessions is

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 277

due to two causes — indiffei£i£cV&nd misinformation:
Each year thousands of American tourists visit Japan
and the China Coast, yet comparatively few of them
take the time or trouble to visit Manila, which can be
reached from Hong Kong as quickly and as easily
as New Orleans can be reached from New York, in
order to see for themselves the miracles that have
been wrought in those islands by their countrymen.
The president of a great motion-picture corporation,
in whose interests I recently went to the Far East,
urged me to waste no time in the Philippines. "The
American public is not interested in them," he as-
sured me, "and there isn't much to see there, any-
way/ 9 Some months ago an American weekly whose
circulation runs into the millions published an article
on the political situation in the islands by a journalist
who based his statements on the superficial informa-
tion gathered during the brief period the vessel on
which he was traveling remained at Manila. And a
high official of the insular administration told me that
his aunt — by no means an unintelligent or uneducated
woman — asked him during one of his periodical visits
home how often he ran over to Havana 1

I am perfectly well aware that certain of the Ameri-
can, and probably all of the Filipino officials who by
their hospitality and thoughtfulness made my journey
through the archipelago almost a triumphal progress
so far as entertainments, comforts, and traveling ar-
rangements were concerned will accuse me of ingrati-

278 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

tude when they read this book. They entertained me
with a lavishness which I have seen equalled in few
countries and surpassed in none; they provided me
with motor cars and launches and canoes and saddle-
horses and military escorts. Over their railways I
was permitted to travel only by special train, and,
thanks to the courtesy of the then governor-general,
Francis Burton Harrison, and of the Honorable
Manuel Quezon, president of the Philippine Senate,
there was placed at my disposal a government vessel,
the coastguard cutter Negros, on which I made a
cruise of nearly six thousand miles. Not for one in-
stant do I think that these exceptional facilities for
observation were afforded me in an attempt to pur-
chase my opinion, but rather because the insular gov-
ernment desired me to see the islands under the most
comfortable conditions, hoping, no doubt, that -I
would form a favorable impression of what it had
accomplished and would pass on my opinions to my
readers in the United States. But it seems to me
that a writer's first duty is to keep faith with those
who read his writings and whose opinions are pre-
sumably molded to a considerable extent by what
he tells them. So if in the following pages I do not
always agree with the opinions or approve of the
policies of those who so lavishly entertained me ; if I
do not indorse all of the claims that are made by the
Filipinos and the American officials of the recent
Democratic administration, it is not because I am un-

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 279

grateful or unappreciative, but because I am trying
to paint for you a truthful picture, uncolored by politi-
cal partisanship or racial prejudice or personal bias,
of conditions as I found them in the Philippines.

n

You will pardon me, I trust, if I recall
to your minds certain geographic facts in or-
der that you may have a substantial foundation on
which to build an intelligent opinion of the problem
which confronts us in the Philippines. To begin with,
the Philippine Archipelago, which consists of some-
thing over three thousand islands, large and small,
could be enclosed, roughly speaking, in an isosceles
triangle with a base line of six hundred miles and the
other two sides of twelve hundred miles each. This
triangle lies between the Pacific Ocean and the China
Sea in the same latitude as Central America. Form-
ing the apex of the triangle is the island of Luzon,
which is about the size of Ohio. The lower right-
hand corner of the triangle is formed by another great
island, Mindanao, whose area corresponds to that of
Indiana. Sprinkled about between these dominating
islands are the lesser islands of Samar, Negros,
Panay, Palawan, and Mindoro, each about the size
of Connecticut, and Leyte, Cebu, Bohol, and Masbata,
each of which is somewhat larger than Rhode Island.

280 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

Outside the southern boundary of the triangle — out-
side it in more senses than one — is the Sulu Archi-
pelago, of which Jolo, on the island of Sulu, is the
provincial capital and the principal town.

Now in considering the question of the Philippines
one should never lose sight of the fact that the Fili-
pinos are not a people. This assertion, I might add,
directly contradicts Mr. Maximo M. Kalaw, a bril-
liant young Filipino writer, who says in one of his
books, "One fact must be conceded in studying the
Philippine question: the Filipinos are a people, like
the Cubans or the Irish or the French — a distinct
political entity, with a consciousness of kind and with
national feelings and aspirations." With this con-
tention most ethnologists flatly disagree. The Fili-
pinos belong, it is true, to the great Malay race, as do
the natives of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java,
and Borneo ; just as the Irish belong to the Celtic race,
the French to the Latin race, and the Cubans to the
Latin and African races. But that does not make
them a people in the generally accepted sense of the
word. As Mr. A. R. Colquhoun in "The Mastery of
the Pacific" says : "No Malay nation has ever emerged
from the hordes of that race, which is spread over
the islands of the Pacific. Wherever they are found
they have certain marked characteristics and of these
the most remarkable is their lack of that spirit which
goes to form a homogeneous people, to weld them to-

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 281

gether. The Malay is always a provincial ; more, he
rarely rises outside the interests of his own town or
village." The truth is that the Filipinos, instead of
being a people, are a congeries of peoples which have
come to the Philippines at various periods in succes-
sive waves of immigration. Although, as the result
of four centuries of white man's rule, they have grad-
ually come to resemble one another more and more
and to have more and more in common, they are still
as distinct in their genealogies, their languages, and
their characteristics as the Chinooks, the Zufiis, the
Iroquois, and the Sioux. That they possess certain
national characteristics and a certain homogeneity of
population which may eventually weld them into a
people I do not attempt to deny, but that day has not
yet arrived.

There are many methods of classifying the races
of mankind and their subdivisions, but that which
measures them by their speech is sanctioned by long
usage and by logic. Now one of the first things that
impressed the early explorers, as well as the mission-
aries who came after them, was the amazing multiplic-
ity of languages among the inhabitants of the Philip-
pines. And what was true in Magellan's time is
equally true to-day, the only common medium of
communication between the various peoples being the
alien tongues which they have learned from their
Spanish and American rulers, there being, in fact,

282 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

more sharply distinct dialects than there are tribes in
the islands. 1 Though English is the official language,
being a compulsory subject in the schools, the pro-
ceedings of both the Philippine Senate and House of
Representatives are conducted in Spanish. Ability
to read and write English or Spanish or a native
language entitles a male citizen of the Philippines
who is twenty-one or more years of age to vote-
Yet out of the total of more than two mil-
lion Filipinos of voting age in the islands in
1919, barely one third possessed this qualification.
Though the Philippines were ruled from Madrid for
more than three hundred and seventy-five years, the
use of Spanish never became common, a knowledge of
that tongue being limited to the educated minority.
This was probably due in considerable measure, how-
ever, to the fact that the Spaniards rather discouraged
the natives from learning Spanish, doubtless because
they feared that a common medium of communication
would tend to unite the Filipinos against them. That
fear never troubled the Americans, however, for they
began teaching English to the natives from the be-
ginning of the occupation. It is a striking commen-
tary on the efficacy of our educational methods that
after less than a quarter of a century of American
rule English is far more widely spoken than Spanish
ever was. When it comes into comparatively general

1 Uiere are forty-three ethnographic groups or tribes in the archipelago
and eighty-seven distinct dialects are spoken.

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 288

use, as it will if the politicians in Washington and
Manila permit the present educational system to be
adhered to, one of the chief obstacles in the way of
welding the Filipinos into a homogeneous people will
have disappeared.

The practical difficulties resulting from this multi-
plicity of tongues are legion. Here is a typical ex-
ample. When, during the Aguinaldo revolt of 1898,
a number of insurrectionary leaders met at Gerona, in
Tarlac Province, Luzon, to elect municipal officers,
the revolutionary decrees had to be read in Tagalog,
in Ilocano, in Pampanga, and in Pangasinan, all of
which languages were spoken in the town. And Jus-
tice Johnson of the Philippine Supreme Court tells of
the trial of seven men charged with a murder, at which
it was necessary to read the complaint in four different
dialects. Imagine, if you please, what would be the
obstacle to self-government in the British Isles, which
in area very nearly correspond to the Philippines, if
the English could not make themselves understood
by the Welsh, if the Welsh were unable to converse
with the Scotch, if the Scotch spoke a different tongue
from the Irish, and if the languages of all four were
wholly unintelligible to the inhabitants of the Isle
of Man, the only common medium of communication
being French or German, with which only the edu-
cated classes were familiar.

There is another reason than the lingual one why
the inhabitants of the Philippines cannot truthfully be

284 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

■» j

called a people, I refer to the barriers of mutftafr
dislike and prejudice which have separated the vari-
ous island races ever since the dawn of their recorded
history. Political power in the Philippines is at pres-
ent about equally divided between the Visayans, most
of whom live in the Visaya group, in the center of the
archipelago, and comprise more than forty per cent,
of the total population, and the Tagalogs, who dwell
mainly in central Luzon and have less than half the
numerical strength of their southern neighbors. The
only other element which really counts politically is
the Ilocanos, also from Luzon, who, though they
form only about twenty per cent, of the total popula-
tion, are quite capable of holding their own. Though
the Tagalogs, who are preeminently politicians, in
which respect they might aptly be compared to the
French-Canadians, have heretofore been the dominat-
ing Filipino people of the islands, their political su-
premacy has been successfully challenged in recent
years by the Visayans. The differences of the two
chief racio-political groups have been successfully har-
monized of late, however, through the tact, ability, and
vision of their respective leaders — the Honorable
Manuel Quezon, President of the Senate, who is a
Tagalog, and Senor Osmefia, Speaker of the House
of Representatives, who is a Visayan.

Of all the Christian races, the Tagalogs are the most
intelligent, the most progressive, and, it is usually
conceded, the least reliable. The Visayans, though in

31

ii

P

SI

O -3

^L

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 285

many respects less capable, are generally more docile
and law-abiding. The Ilocanos have a well-deserved
reputation for industry and for real ability which
both of the others lack. These three peoples, which
between them control the governmental machinery of
the islands, are at heart about as mutually friendly
as the South Irish and the Ulstermen, though it must
be admitted, in all fairness, that they have to a great
extent buried their animosities for political reasons.
But whether these mutual animosities would be per-
mitted to remain buried, were the islanders granted
complete independence, is quite another question.

The Visayans, the Tagalogs, and the Ilocanos, to-
gether with the Bicols, the Pangasinans, the Caga-
yans, and the Zambalans, comprise the seven princi-
pal Christian tribes commonly referred to as Filipinos
and form approximately seven eighths of the total
population of the islands. In addition to the racial
divisions just enumerated, there are some twenty-
seven non-Christian or pagan tribes, such as the Igo-
rots, the Ifugaos, and the Kalingas, all from the
mountainous districts of northern Luzon and all, until
quite recently, addicted to the exciting pastime of
head-hunting; and the Mandayas and Monobos, two
large tribes inhabiting Mindanao. Another of the
pagan tribes is the Negritos, black dwarfs, numbering
only some twenty-five thousand, who are the aborig-
ines and the original owners of the Philippines. The
Negritos had been in undisturbed possession of the

286 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

islands for centuries when there came a stronger and
more advanced race, the Igorots, who conquered the
aborigines and appropriated their lands, precisely as
we appropriated the lands of the Indians. Later came
the wave of Malays we now know as Filipinos and
took from the Igorots what they had gained. Though
several of the pagan tribes have attained the same
level of civilization as the Christians, the latter, never-
theless, treat them socially and politically with undis-
guised contempt, superciliously referring to them
as "wild men." Finally we find, far to the south in
the Sulu Archipelago, something over a quarter of a
million Moros, intensely warlike and fanatical Mo-
hammedans whom the Christian Filipinos profess to
despise, but of whose fighting qualities they have in
reality an inherited and well-grounded fear.

Even more significant, however, than the differ-
ences which separate the Christians, the Mohamme-
dans, and the pagans, or the dissensions which disunite
the Tagalogs, the Ilocanos, and the Visayans, are
those which divide the individuals themselves. I refer
to the covert but none the less existent antagonism
of the great brown mass of the people for the mestizos,
or half-castes. For it must be kept in mind that very
few of the political leaders are of pure, or anywhere
near pure, Malayan blood. One has only to trace
their ancestry back a little way to find indubitable
evidence of the admixture of European or Mongolian
blood. Of the three men who are generally conceded

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 287

to be the ablest politicians in the islands and who
hold the most responsible positions open to Filipinos,
one is reputed to be at least half Spanish, another
three fourths Spanish, and a third half Chinese. The
dominance of the mestizos in insular affairs is un-
doubtedly due in part to the advantages of education
and travel which they owe to the wealth and influence
of their fathers, but I am convinced that an even
greater factor in gaining their present ascendancy is
the alien blood — particularly the European blood —
which courses in their veins. Whatever may be the
cause, nothing is more certain than that until the na-
tives put aside their petty rivalries and dissensions
and develop a national consciousness, until they sup-
plant indolence by energy, until they acquire the
courage to assert themselves, the mestizos will remain
in the saddle. As things stand at present the mestizos,
some of whom are men of undeniable ability, are the
only element in the islands to whom we could con-
ceivably turn over the reins of power. What most
Americans fail to understand is this : Were we, upon
evacuating the islands, to intrust the machinery of
government to the little group of professional poli-
ticians who at present control it (and who are the
only natives in any degree qualified by education and
experience to control it), the Filipinos themselves
would be no nearer independence than they are to-day,
for we merely would be supplanting the present form
of government by an oligarchy.

288 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

m

Nothing is more unwise, generally speaking,
than to indulge in generalizations about a people.
Yet the Filipinos, taken as a whole, possess cer-
tain characteristics which are so outstanding that
they are admitted by their enemies and their friends.
Were I asked to enumerate their desirable qualities
which most impressed me I should name without hesi-
tation their boundless hospitality, their personal clean-
liness, their dignity and self-respect, their good na-
ture, their innate courtesy and their consideration for
strangers, their love of children, their mental activity,
their devotion to their country, and their consuming
passion for education. No matter how poor a Filipino
may be, no matter how scanty his food and how
wretched his dwelling, he may always be relied upon
to offer a stranger the best that his house affords.
American soldiers repeatedly have told me of the hos-
pitality shown them in remote Filipino villages in
which they chanced to find themselves at nightfall, the
natives frequently ateeping out of doors in order that
their guests might have shelter. In no country which I
know — and I can claim familiarity with something
over a hundred — have I met with such universal cour-
tesy as in the Philippines, the native character com-
bining the politeness of the Latin with the easy com-
plaisance of the Malay. They are passionately de-

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 289

voted to their children and will make any sacrifice in
order to educate them, a quality which offers great en-
couragement for their future. The family bonds
among the Filipinos are much closer than with us.
In fact, a Filipino will make no decision without first
consulting with his family. This love of family is
carried to an extreme, however, in the so-called pa-
riente system, which is almost universal in the islands ;
that is, when a man begins to make money, or when
he obtains an even moderately profitable position, he
is expected as a matter of course to support all those
members of his family and of his wife's family who
cannot support themselves, even to first and second
cousins. It is no infrequent occurrence, indeed, for
his poorer relatives to move to his home, bag and bag-
gage, and proceed to make it their own, a burden
which he assumes without complaint. This is family
affection carried to the nth degree, but it has the ob-
vious disadvantage of inflicting a penalty on any ef-
fort to better one's condition. "Why should I work
any harder than I do?" argues the Filipino peasant.
"Were I to make any more mouey, I should be ex-
pected to support my mother-in-law and my cousins
and my uncles and my aunts."

Though the Filipinos still suffer among foreigners
from the evil reputation which they gained as a result
of their cruel and inhuman treatment of Spanish and
American captives, and though they certainly are
callous of the pain suffered by others, they are not

290 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

treacherous under ordinary circumstances. If they
are jealous and eager for revenge, it is because these
qualities are inherent in the Malay character. If they
are prone to settle their differences with knives instead
of with their fists, it is because they have been for
centuries under the rule of Latins instead of Anglo-
Saxons. When well disciplined and under the leader-
ship of American officers, they make faithful and de-
pendable soldiers, as has been proved on a hundred
occasions by the Philippine Scouts and the Philippine
Constabulary.

Notwithstanding the assertion often made by for-
eigners that the Filipinos are indolent, fond of ease,
and dislike toil exceedingly, those who know them
best assure me that under proper hygienic conditions
they make willing, industrious, and faithful laborers.
In those cases where they have displayed a lack of
energy and industry it has usually been found upon
investigation that their apparent indolence was due
to the fact that their vitality had been sapped by the
unhygienic conditions under which they were living
— a statement which applies with equal force to many
of the "poor whites" of our South. Moreover the
Filipinos are almost invariably courteous and cheer-
ful, qualities which are not characteristic of all Orien-
tal races.

Like all Malay peoples, they are much addicted to
gambling and cock-fighting, which are their national
pastimes, though it is a healthy sign that they are now

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 291

rivaled in the popular esteem by baseball and boxing,
which were introduced by our soldiers in the early
days of the American occupation and which have
grown steadily in popularity ever since. Indeed, there
is scarcely a barrio in the islands which does not have
its baseball team and its local boxing talent, the towns-
people "rooting" for their representatives with all the
enthusiasm shown by "fans" in the United States.
The Olympic Stadium in Manila, where the important
boxing contests are held, can accommodate thirty-five
hundred persons and is invariably packed to the
point of suffocation when matches between well-
known fighters are pulled off. The fighters are
usually recruited from the cochero class, though news-
boys and even golf caddies have at times won honors
in the ring. The better boxers possess ample cour-
age and considerable science, usually being well able
to hold their own against pugilists of their own weight
from the Pacific Coast and Australia. Filipinos being
almost universally of slight stature, the native boxers
are classified as welter-weights, feather-weights, ban-
tam-weights, fly-weights, paper-weights, and vacuum-
weights, the last class comprising boxers weighing less
than sixty pounds, though the sporting press occasion-
ally refers, perhaps facetiously, to mosquito-weights.
Cock-fighting is as popular in the Philippines as
baseball is in the United States, every town and ham-
let having its cockpits and its fighting birds. The
chief feature of cock-fighting is the gambling con-

\ AT THE CROSSROADS'

t, for.as the birds are armed with.fefcir-

razor sharpneSjSnyery little sport attaches

t, one or both birjJs' dsually being Idlled

minutes after theyenter the pit. The

are inordinately' -proud of their local

juguimg-cuuns, boasting of thejp prowess as a Boston-

ian brags of the "Braves" or a New Yorker of the

"Giants" and always being ready to back them to the

limit of their pocketbooks.

An overwhelming majority of the Filipinos are
farmers. But though the American Government has
made every effort to improve agricultural conditions
in the islands by sending out experts and machinery,
by the establishment of agricultural schools and farm
bureaus, and by the free distribution of seeds, the
Filipino peasant farmer has not made the prog-
ress which might be looked for in nearly four
centuries of white man's rule. Though rice is
the bread of the people and is grown in great
quantities, the peasants still prepare the land for
planting with an implement which can be called a plow
only by courtesy — a sort of pointed wooden snag,
sometimes tipped with iron and sometimes not, drawn
by a carabao whose movements are as leisurely as
those of its owner. In order to give it a start over the
weeds which would otherwise strangle it, rice is first
planted in seed-beds and, when partly grown, is
transplanted by hand, it being by no means uncom-

e than 9000 feet.

rhete ire anionic the moat eiiraordinarj Diimplei of hydraulic engineering ii
nfateflce, being far more remarkable than the celebrated '-hanging gardens" o
Babylon.
BICE TERRACES BUILT BY THE IFUOAOE8 IN THE MOUNTAIN
PROVINCE, LUZON

THRESHING RICE WITH THEIR FEET

PLOWING AND HARROWING THE ZACATE FIELDS

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 293

mem to see sco^-af Avomea and children squatting on
their heels in ^fW^&hallow Vater of the paddy-fields
and working ton^onusie'df a small string band with
which they keejfeJime, so that the faster the music
plays the faster they work. Mr. Dean C. Worcester,
acknowledgedly one of the foremost authorities on the
Philippines, states that orchestras which have the rep*
utation of maintaining a rapid tempo are in great
demand during the planting season because of the in-
creased amount of rice set. Imagine the agricultural
prodigies that might be performed with the coopera-
tion of an American jazz band! When harvest time
comes around the grain is usually separated from the
chaff by the family and the neighbors of the rice-
growers, who put in several pleasant and not over-
strenuous days leaning against a long rail, set loosely
in supports so that it will revolve, smoking, gossiping,
and singing as they thresh out the grain with their
feet.

What I have said above refers, of course, only to the
small peasant farmers who form the bulk of the
agricultural population. The larger landowners, on
the contrary, have eagerly availed themselves of the
agricultural devices introduced by the Americans, the
primitive Malay methods having been entirely sup-
planted on the large plantations by steel plows, trac-
tors, and threshing-machines. The fact remains, how-
ever, that modern agricultural methods are still the

294 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

exception instead of the rule, so that the Philippines,
which should be one of the great rice-exporting coun-
tries of the world, are compelled to import it.

To see rice-growing in its most picturesque and
interesting form one must journey to the country
of the Ifugaos in Central Luzon. These people, who
up to the time of the American occupation were in-
veterate head-hunters, are under a heavy agricultural
handicap by reason of living in a region as mountain-
ous as Switzerland. Yet on slopes as steep as a
church roof they cultivate their rice on a vast series
of terraces, which are held in position by stone re-
taining walls laid without mortar or cement of any
kind and which in places ascend the mountainsides for
more than three thousand feet. It will give you some
idea of the sort of masonry required to withstand the
weather conditions when I mention that in this region
thirty-eight inches of rain has fallen in twenty-four
hours and seventy-two inches in five days. The rice
terraces of the Ifugaos are among the most extraordi-
nary examples of primitive hydraulic engineering in
existence, being, when the climatic and physical con-
ditions are taken into consideration, far more re-
markable than the celebrated "hanging gardens" of
Babylon.

IV

Now that the trail of our narrative has led us into
the mountains, suppose that we pause long enough

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 295

for me to tell you something about those singular
and little-known peoples — the Igorots, the Kalingas,
and the If ugaos — who inhabit them. There are many
degrees of civilization among these peoples, perhaps
their distinguishing difference being that in their per-
sonal habits the Igorots are disgustingly filthy, while
the Kalingas and Ifugaos are, everything considered,
surprisingly clean. Comparatively speaking, the
Igorots living in the vicinity of Baguio, the beautiful
summer capital of the Philippines, are highly civilized,
often dwelling in substantially built houses and eager-
ly availing themselves of the educational opportunities
afforded by the provincial government. One of the
battalions of Philippine Scouts stationed at Camp
John Hay when I was there was composed entirely
of Igorots, and they were as smart and well-disciplined
a body of native soldiery as I have ever seen. Officers
who have served with them are loud in their praises
of their courage, discipline, and loyalty. But an
hour's ride on horseback into the surrounding moun-
tains brings you into the country of the real wild
man. Here the men wear nothing except a rag,
known as a "gee-string," twisted about their loins;
the women cover a portion of their nakedness with
an apron of cloth made from the bark of a tree.
Though head-hunting has been "officially" abolished
these dozen years, the wilder spirits still surrepti-
tiously indulge in this savage sport when a safe oppor-
tunity offers, their success in the pursuit being evi-

296 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

denced by the number of lines tattooed on their faces,
which have precisely the same significance as the
notches which the "bad men" of the old West were
wont to file on their revolver barrels.

The Igorots live in flimsy huts thatched with ftipa
leaves, many of which contain a trophy room for
skulls. They are extremely superstitious and live in
constant fear of the spirits of the dead. Their favorite
food is dog-meat, it being no uncommon thing for an
Igorot to walk a hundred miles in order to attend the
dog-market which is held at Baguio every Sunday
morning. Here are brought hundreds of dogs —
usually underfed and mangy mongrels — which are
bought or stolen by the dealers in the villages of the
plain. A dog will bring anywhere from three to eight
pesos, according to his size and condition, and the
prospective purchasers inspect them as critically as an
American housewife inspects the turkey which she is
buying for the Thanksgiving dinner. The process
of buying a dog often takes the better part of a day,
the Igorot raising his offer and the dealer dropping
his price centavo by centavo. I was told by con-
stabulary officers — I cannot personally vouch for the
accuracy of this statement — that the Igorot, after
leading his purchase back to his home in the moun-
tains, starves the wretched animal for a week or more.
When it is sufficiently famished to devour anything
that is offered it, the Igorot feeds it to repletion with
great quantities of rice, together with plenty of water,

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 297

and then slowly beats it to death with a bamboo club
for the purpose of making the meat more tender.

Once while on a riding trip through the mountain
country my attention was attracted by the deep,
low roll of tom-toms, coming, I discovered, from an
Igorot village whose huts clung precariously to the
precipitous slope half a mile below. Descending the
steep and narrow trail which led to the village, I came
upon a ccmiau, or feast, in full blast. Two husky
Igorots, naked except for their gee-strings, were
swinging the carcass of what evidently had been a
large yellow dog over a fire, while at one side women
were cutting up the body of another animal which had
already been roasted. Squatting in the doorway of
a hut were two musicians, one of whom was beating
monotonously on a drum made from a hollow log
with a skin stretched across the end, the other now
and again striking a resounding blow upon a large
metal tom-tom. Lying about in a drunken stupor
on the grass were several members of the tribe who
had been overcome by the enormous quantities of fiery
rice liquor, called tapuy, which they had consumed.
It was a scene which would have satisfied the most
avid sensation-seeker. Yet the educated Filipinos
who entertained me so delightfully in Manila assured
me over and over again that the Igorots had been
completely civilized and were no longer a problem.
It is the barest justice to add, however, that the prob-
lem presented by the wild tribes is being rapidly

298 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

solved by the steady spread of education. The young
Igorots whom I saw attending an agricultural school
in the Trinidad Valley impressed me as being fully as
intelligent and alert as most American youngsters of
the same age.

The Igorots practice the curious custom of smoking
their dead, though I gathered that this mummifying
process is confined, as a rule, to the wealthy. The
body of the dead man is lashed in a sitting position in
a sort of skeleton armchair beneath which is kindled
a fire, or rather a smudge, of green branches, the pro-
cedure being much the same as that employed by an
American farmer in smoking a ham. The body is
generally smoked for about four weeks, at the end
of which period it is as dry and shriveled as the Phar-
aohs who sleep under the glass cases in the Cairo
Museum. It is then conveyed by relatives and friends
to the tribal burial cave, usually hidden away in the
recesses of the mountains, where it is set against the
wall in a sitting posture at the end of a long line of
other departed Igorots. Though the Bureau of
Science in Manila is said to possess a remarkable col-
lection of photographs of this curious custom, its of-
ficials would neither sell me copies nor permit me to
see them. The picture of the burial cave which is
reproduced herewith I obtained, though not without
some difficulty, from an enterprising Japanese pho-
tographer in Baguio.

The Filipinos assert with considerable truth that

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 299

the publication of such photographs gives the for-
eigner an exaggerated notion of the importance of
the wild tribes, which, they contend, play as insig-
nificant a role in the Philippines as the Indians do in
the United States. This statement is hardly exact,
however, as there are about four times as many non-
Christians in the islands as there are Indians in this
country.

"But you have pictures of the Igorots?" I asked the
courteous Filipino official who was in charge of the
photographic section of the Bureau of Science.

"Certainly we have them," was the answer. "In
fact, we have the largest and finest collection in
existence. But some months ago we received orders
that no more prints from them were to be sold to
foreigners, and last week the album containing the
Igorot pictures was removed from this bureau to the
office of the Secretary of the Interior."

Now I can entirely sympathize with the sensitive-
ness of the civilized and cultured Filipinos, who nat-
urally resent being confused by strangers with the sav-
age hillmen, but I believe that in attempting to pre-
vent the publication of photographs of their uncivil-
ized countrymen they are pursuing an unwise and
short-sighted policy. When you tell a traveler who is
of an inquiring turn of mind that there is something
hidden in the mountains which it is thought wise for
him not to see, something of which he must not even be
shown pictures, his curiosity is immediately aroused

800 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

and he determines to find (jut What it is that is being so
sedulously concealed f ron$iim. Imagine th^fttntastic
rumors that would quickly* gain currency among" for-
eigners were the American Government to forbicTthe
publication of the official photographs, taken tylte
Bureau of Indian Affairs, of the Hopi snake dances,
which are fully as revolting as many of the Igcrdt
customs. The Filipinos are a young and sensitive
people; they are sincerely endeavoring to gain the
respect of the world, and they are making remarkable
progress, but their task would be lighter if they would
approach it with the sense of humor possessed by a
quick-witted young woman from Sioux City who was
visiting at an English country house.

"So you 're from Sioux City?" remarked the Eng-
lishman who was her dinner-partner, screwing a
monocle into his eye and surveying her with undis-
guised curiosity. "I say, though, you speak jolly
good English, you know. Hardly a trace of Indian
accent — yes, really."

"That's easily explained," she replied dryly,
though with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes. "You
see, we had an English missionary in our tribe."

Now in justice to the Filipinos I ought to explain
before proceeding that some of the pictures I have
chosen to illustrate this chapter are not characteristic
of present-day conditions in the Philippines. But
they are unusual and they are interesting; that is why
I have used them. Had I so desired, I could have

AN IGOROT BURIAIXTAVE

'■* - *\ j* ** , " v '■

FRUIT-BATS IN PLIGHT, LAGANGILANG

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 801

used a picture of a Manila liotel which would attract
attention in Atlantic City; a elub which would do
credit to any city in the United States; a town in
Mindanao which is the most beautifully kept munici-
pality, bar none,, that I have ever seen; a cocoanut-oil
factory which is said to be paying its stockholders one
hundred per cent, annually on their investments; a
mountain highway in Luzon which for sheer audacity
of engineering has no equal, even in the Alps; and
schools, hospitals, and other public buildings ad in-
finitum. Of course the Filipinos will deprecate my
choice of illustrations. When I was writing a book on
the Far West some years ago I experienced great diffi-
culty in obtaining pictures of cow-punchers, pack-
trains, and Indians. The citizens of that bustling
region, filled with civic pride, insisted that I confine
myself to pictures of apple orchards, alfalfa fields,
and artesian wells. So the Filipinos cannot be blamed
so much, after all

We now come to one of the gravest, if not
indeed, the gravest of the numerous problems
which go to make up the Philippine Question — the
Moro. Though these warlike Mohammedans of the
south embrace five distinct tribes — Sulu, Yankan,
Samal, Magindanao, and Tarao — they may be con-
sidered, for the purpose of this article, as one people.

802 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

They were the last of the Malays to migrate to the
Philippines, having at one period overrun the islands
as far north as Manila, just as the Moors — from
whom, by the way, the Moros derive their name — over-
ran Spain. Like the Moors, too, they have never been
completely subjugated. Though they comprise less
than one third of the total non-Christian population —
there are only about three hundred thousand of them
— their relative numerical insignificance is far
from being a criterion of their military strength and
ability. Not only have the Filipinos been unable to
protect themselves against these bloodthirsty fanatics,
but the Spaniards for nearly two centuries and a half
were unable to give them adequate protection, the
shores of northern Luzon being dotted to-day with
the forts which were built for defence against them.
The bulk of the Moro population is found within
the boundaries of the recently created Department of
Mindanao and Sulu, though a few thousand of them
inhabit the southern districts of Palawan. Until very
recently their chief pursuits were piracy, brigandage,
murder, and arson, in which they still indulge when a
safe and favorable opportunity offers, though of late,
thanks to the patience and tact of the American offi-
cials, they have made surprising progress in agricul-
ture. An official of the Philippine Bureau of Educa-
tion named Warner, who spent seven years on Siasi,
one of the islands of the Sulu group, where he was the
only white man, teaching its Moro inhabitants modern

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 808

methods of agriculture, told me that the Moros possess
a much higher type of intelligence than the Filipinos
and assimilate new ideas far more quickly. As he
had spent four years among the Visayans before go-
ing to Moroland, he was eminently qualified to com-
pare the two races. He added that they have a highly
developed sense of humor; that they are quick to ap-
preciate subtle stories, which the Tagalogs and Visa-
yans are not, and that they are much readier to accept
advice on agricultural and economic matters than the
Christian Filipinos. In this he is corroborated by Mr.
Dean C. Worcester, who says, "The Moros exemplify
what may be considered the highest stage of civiliza-
tion to which Malays have ever attained unaided."

Though the Moros are cruel, haughty, and often
treacherous, they are at the same time exceedingly
courteous, observing their own code of manners
rigidly. They are inordinately fond of brilliant colors,
blacken their lips and teeth with betel-nut, and are
justly proud of their skill with their characteristic
weapons — the serpentine-bladed Malay kris and the
terrible Moro barong. The latter is a knife with an
exceptionally broad and heavy blade which the Moro
carries slung over his left shoulder in a scabbard con-
sisting of two thin pieces of board held together with
string. When he goes into action he wastes no time
in freeing the weapon from his sheath, but sweeps it
down, sheath and all, on the head of his enemy, the
razor-sharp blade cutting the strings of the scabbard

804 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

as it whistles through the air. The Moros are. fine
horsemen and fearless sailors. Mounted on their wiry
island ponies, they hunt the native stags over incred-
ibly rough country, down jnountainsides, through
jungles, and across swamps, tiring them out and loll-
ing them with spears. Those who have ridden in the
first flight of the Quorn and the Pytchley would find
themselves hard put to it to keep pace with the field
in a hunt in Moroland. In their slim vintas, dugouts
equipped with double outriggers, they jeer at the
roughest seas, it being for this reason virtually im-
possible to suppress the opium-smuggling and gun-
running which are being carried on unceasingly by the
Moros, as much, I imagine, from love of danger and
excitement as for gain.

Though they proudly profess themselves followers
of the prophet, theirs is not the Mohammedanism one
finds in Turkey or North Africa, but a brand of
religion peculiarly their own. They neither pray
five times a day nor observe the fasting month of
Ramadan, duties enjoined on all true believers. The
Koran is read to them in Arabic, a language of which
they know nothing, and occasionally the priests and
chiefs, who are often identical, assemble in the flimsy,
gaudily painted wooden structures which are the Moro
equivalents of mosques and pray for the entire com-
munity. Yet many of the wealthy Moros have made
the long hadj to the holy places, half the world away,

t"t

■J

i!

X ■

a

1|

%'■

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 805

and wear about their turbans the white scarf which is
the emblem of a hadji from one end of Islam to the
other. It was curious to see how quickly the demeanor
of the datos with whom I talked changed from sul-
lenness to eagerness when they learned that I had re-
cently been in Constantinople and had seen the Com-
mander of the Faithful. The Sultan of Sulu, who
dined with me aboard the Negros at Sandakan —
where he had gone to collect his monthly subsidy from
the British North Borneo Company — told me that he
still regarded the Sultan of Turkey as the head of
Islam; but the Dato of Dansalan, the most powerful
chieftain in the Lake Lanao district of Mindanao,
asserted that he and his followers had accepted the
spiritual leadership of the King of Hedjaz, who fulfills
the most important of the koranic qualifications for
the khalifate by being in actual possession of the holy
cities of Mecca and Medina. It struck me, however,
that their knowledge of Islamic political and theologi-
cal questions was no more profound than the average
Roman Catholic's comprehension of the policy of the
Holy See. Though the datos and priests doubtless
keep in touch to a certain extent with the affairs of
Islam, I am convinced that to the rank and file of the
Moros Mohammedanism is a meaningless shibboleth
about which they know little and care less.

The Filipinos are afraid of the Moros and they have
the best of reasons to be, for the Moro is not only a

806 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

desperate fighter, a dangerous and resourceful enemy,
but he goes into battle with the conviction that he is
assured of gaining Paradise if he kills a Christian.
The Filipino, on the contrary, is not inspired by any
such fanatic willingness to sacrifice himself; he much
prefers the comfort and safety of his native village to
a martyr's crown. The fighting record of the Moros
is written large in the history of the Philippines. Not
only did they successfully defy for two centuries and a
half the best troops that Spain could bring against
them, but it was only by turning Moroland into an
armed camp that we ourselves were able to subjugate
them. Let me add, parenthetically, that the Moros
took no part in the Filipino insurrection against the
United States, being deaf to the appeals made to them
by Aguinaldo. The guerrilla warfare which they
waged against us for several years was due to much
the same reasons which inspired the various outbreaks
among the Indians. Though the Filipinos are not
lacking in courage under ordinary circumstances,
those of our army officers who are familiar with both
peoples are unanimous in asserting their conviction
that they could never impose their rule on the Moros
or that they could even keep them at home. A strik-
ing example of what can be accomplished with these
savage warriors when properly disciplined and well
led is provided by the Moro battalions of the Philip-
pine Scouts, which compare very favorably with the
Pathans and Ghurkas, the best native troops in

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 807

Britain's Indian army, and are greatly superior, in my
estimation, to Egyptian or Senegalese soldiery.

Let the Moro be ruled with justice and unyielding
firmness, and, though he will still be far from making
an ideal citizen, he will not be a troublesome one. I
can see no reason, indeed, why he should not become
as amenable to law and order as has the American
Indian. But I am convinced from what I have seen
and heard of both races that Filipino rule in Moroland
would be neither just nor firm, first, because the Fili-
pinos hate the Moros too bitterly to give them a square
deal; and secondly, because they are in too great fear
of them to rule them with the necessary firmness.
Despite the fact that the Moros fought us desper-
ately for years, they have become, of all the peoples
in the archipelago except the Igorots and the Macca-
bebes, our staunchest friends. They still occasionally
indulge in outbursts of lawlessness, it is true, just as
a party of cow-punchers occasionally shoots up a cat-
tle town, but such affairs are wholly without political
significance. That their suspicion and distrust of
Americans has been replaced by confidence and liking
is largely due to the extraordinary tact and ability in
handling them displayed by two men: Mr. Frank
Carpenter, Governor of the Department of Mindanao
and Sulu, and Mr. P. W. Rogers, formerly Governor
of Jolo. As long as the Moros are permitted to con-
tinue under American rule they will remain as peace-
able as their naturally turbulent natures permit, but

808 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

once attempt to replace the American troops and offi-
cials with Filipinos and there will be an outburst that
will shake the archipelago.

The Filipino officials at Manila complacently assert
that the Moros are now completely disarmed, and
therefore powerless. In order that this assertion
might not be open to question they cabled Governor
Rogers that the magnificent collection of blade
weapons which he had borrowed from the local chief-
tains must not be included in the Moro exhibit at the
1920 Manila Exposition. As a matter of fact, the
Moros are very far from being disarmed, and no one
knows it better than the Filipino officials. British
officials with whom I talked in North Borneo told me
that arms and ammunition in small quantities are con-
stantly being run across the Sulu Sea from the Dutch
islands, and that there is scarcely a Moro warrior in
the archipelago who does not have a rifle and a store
of cartridges cached in some secret hiding-place
against the day when the hated Filipinos attempt to
assert their authority over them. I discussed the ques-
tion of disarmament with Governor Rogers, who told
me that there were blade weapons in every house and
probably considerable quantities of firearms concealed
in the jungle, and that the official who attempted to
deprive the Moros of them would precipitate an in-
surrection which would threaten the peace of the entire
archipelago. Several of the datos and panglimas with
whom I talked frankly asserted that, though the

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 809

Moros are intensely loyal to the United States, they
will resist any attempt to impose Filipino rule upon
them as long as they have any powers of resistance
left. I cannot be too emphatic in asserting that, in the
event of our eventually granting independence to the
Filipinos, were we to withdraw our protection from
the Moros and hand them over against their wills to
the tender mercies of their northern neighbors, we
would be guilty of a most shameful breach of faith
and would almost certainly precipitate a bloody and
interminable civil war. The specious arguments of
the independistas to the contrary, the Moros are not
Filipinos. They are a different breed, speaking a
different tongue, following different customs, prac-
tising a different faith. The Sulu Archipelago, in
which the bulk of them dwell, is a geographical entity,
as distinct from the Philippine Islands as the Bahamas
are from the Greater Antilles. And they distrust
and detest the Filipinos with a vehemence which I
have never seen equalled. For us to attempt to coerce
the Moros into submission to Filipino rule would be as
unjustifiable as for the British Government to coerce
the people of Ulster into accepting the rule of the Dail
Eireann.

VI

Since the American occupation in 1898 the Phil-
ippines have had four distinct forms of govern-

810 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

ment. The first was the military government, which
lasted from August, 1898 until February, 1900 — "the
days of the Empire," as this period is proudly re-
ferred to by the older Americans. Next came
the government of the Philippine Commission,
which ruled the archipelago for upward of seven years.
This was followed by a dual government, composed
of the Philippine Commission and a Philippine as-
sembly elected by popular vote, the two bodies bear-
ing much the same relation to each other as the upper
and lower houses of Congress. This was supplanted
in 1916, under the provisions of the so-called Jones
Bill, by a form of government that is to all intents and
purposes completely autonomous, since when Ameri-
can sovereignty has meant little more to the Filipinos
than the governor-general and the flag.

Though the present Philippine Government is pat-
terned in the main on that of the United States, it is
characterized by a distinct tendency toward paternal-
ism and the English system of parliamentary respon-
sibility. The governor-general, who is the chief execu-
tive; the vice-governor, who is also the secretary of
public instruction ; the auditor, and the deputy auditor
are appointed by the President of the United States
and are always Americans. The governor-general
exercises control through the secretaries of the
six executive departments — Public Instruction, In-
terior, Justice, Commerce and Communications, Fi-

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 811

nance, Agriculture and Natural Resources — who
form his cabinet and all of whom, except the first, are
Filipinos. Through the auditor the government at
Washington keeps, or is supposed to keep, a guiding
and restraining hand on the finances of the islands,
though recent events, about which I shall speak fur-
ther on, suggest that neither guidance nor restraint
was exercised to any appreciable extent during the
last administration.

The legislative functions of the insular government
are vested in the Philippine Legislature, consisting
of a Senate and a House of Representatives, their
members being elected by those Christian Filipinos
who can qualify as voters. The non-Christian tribes,
being regarded as "backward" peoples, remain unen-
franchised, but the governor-general appoints, without
confirmation, senators and representatives for the dis-
trict which includes all the non-Christian peoples, in-
cluding the Moros. The legislature exercises com-
plete legislative powers, though the power of veto
inheres to the governor-general and, of course, to the
government at Washington. The Christian provinces
are governed by provincial governors and provincial
boards, the members of which are elected by the quali-
fied voters of their respective provinces. The Moun-
tain Province, in which the bulk of the Igorots dwell,
and the recently created Department of Mindanao
and Sulu, which contains most of the Moro popula-

812 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

tion, are governed under special acts of the Philippine
Legislature in accordance with the specific provisions
of the Jones Bill.

The judiciary consists of justice of the peace courts
in the various municipalities, courts of first instance
in the various provinces, and the Supreme Court of
the Philippine Islands, the decisions of the latter
being subject to review in certain cases by the Su-
preme Court of the United States. The justices of the
peace and of the courts of first instance are appointed
by the governor-general with the approval of the
Philippine Senate. The nine members of the su-
preme court are appointed by the President of the
United States, five of them being Americans and
four, including the chief justice, Filipinos. It will
be seen, therefore, that, though the Filipinos enjoy
virtually complete autonomy so far as their domestic
affairs are concerned, the government at Washington,
through the American governor-general, the Amer-
ican auditor, and the American majority on the su-
preme bench, retains control of the executive, finan-
cial, and judicial branches of the insular government.
In short, the government at Washington occupies
much the same position toward the Manila govern-
ment that a guardian occupies toward a minor ward.
As long as the ward behaves himself the guardian is
content to let him run his own affairs, but he is in a
position to make his authority felt if the youth shows
a disposition to kick over the traces.

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 818

Though the Filipinos were granted a steadily in-
creasing measure of autonomy during the Roosevelt
and Taft administrations, certain departments of the
insular government, particularly those concerned with
public health, public security, and public instruc-
tion, were kept under American control by retaining
Americans in most of the higher positions. But the
return to power of the Democratic party in 1918 was
the signal for a complete reversal of American policy
toward the Philippines. When Francis Burton Har-
rison arrived at Manila in that year he apparently
bore a mandate from President Wilson to lose no
time in taking the reins of government out of Amer-
ican hands. This he proceeded to do with a thor-
oughness and despatch which filled the Americans in
the islands with dismay and the Filipinos with exulta-
tion. Those best acquainted with the character and
limitations of the Filipino viewed the wholesale dis-
missal of trained and tried American officials with
grave misgivings, believing it to be unwise, prema-
ture, and as inimical to the best interests of the
United States as to those of the Filipinos them-
selves.

The impression appears to prevail that the "Fil-
ipinization" of the Philippine Government — by
which is meant the replacement of American officials
by natives — began with the Harrison administration.
As a matter of fact, it began with the establishment
of the Philippine Commission in 1900 and made

814 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

steady progress under the administrations of Taft
and Forbes. But whereas Messrs. Taft and Forbes
did their Filipinizing from the bottom up, cautiously
feeling their way and at first putting natives only in
the lower positions, the Democratic administration
recklessly jumped in and proceeded to Filipinize the
highest and most responsible positions in the gov-
ernment, appointing Filipinos with little or no expe-
rience as judges, bureau chiefs, and secretaries of de-
partments, many of these appointments being based
on the political influence of the appointees instead of
on merit, as had been the invariable rule theretofore.
That, together with the substitution of a popularly
elected senate for the appointed commission which
had hitherto taken the place of an upper house, may
be said to comprise the principal measures of Filipin-
ization under the administration of Woodrow Wilson.
When the Democratic party came into power in 1918
it was generally admitted by experienced foreign ob-
servers that the Philippines had the best colonial gov-
ernment in the world. The Democrats had eight
years in which to put their theories to the test. What
has been the result? Owing to improper financial
transactions the credit of the insular government has
been seriously impaired; the gold reserve has been
almost wiped out, so that to-day the currency of the
islands is practically a fiat currency ; the rate of taxa-
tion has been sharply advanced; standards of effi-
ciency in every branch have declined; the foreign

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 815

trade of the islands has fallen off; 1 uncertainty and
discontent exist everywhere. It is only fair to say,
however, that whatever mistakes have been made,
they have not been sufficient to arrest the steady rate
of progress in the islands.

Now in justice to Mr. Harrison it should be said
that the partisan policy which he executed did not
originate with him. Nor, for that matter, did it orig-
inate with President Wilson. It originated in the
early days of the American occupation, when the
politicians in Washington used the Philippine Ques-
tion for purely partisan purposes instead of attempt-
ing to solve it according to the best traditions of Amer-
ican statesmanship. From the very outset, it is true,
the Democratic party has advocated eventual inde-
pendence for the Filipinos, but it was a Republican
president, William McEinley, who stole the Demo-
cratic thunder by specifically declaring, "The Phil-
ippines are not ours to exploit, but to develop, to civ-
ilize, to educate, to train in the science of self-gov-
ernment." It was the first phrase of that sentence,
"The Philippines are not ours," which, by raising
false hopes in Filipino breasts, started the uncertainty
and discontent which have prevailed in the islands to
this day. I believe that we would have saved our-
selves much embarrassment and anxiety, and that the

1 Compared to the peak of prosperity attained during the period
immediately following the war, there is, of coarse, a marked falling off
in Philippine trade, but it is an encouraging sign that there is leas
business depression in the Philippines than in any other tropical country.

816 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

Filipinos would now be a contented and prosperous
people, had we had the moral courage to adopt and
unfalteringly follow the declaration of policy issued
by General Otis, the commander of the American
forces during the Filipino insurrection: "Honor,
justice, and friendship forbid the exploitation of the
islands. The purpose of the American Government
is the welfare and advancement of the Filipino peo-
ple." What a pity that the politicians did not let
it go at that.

In the opinion of competent and unprejudiced ob-
servers, vehement denials of the Filipinos to the con-
trary, the dismissal en masse of Americans under the
Harrison regime has seriously lowered the standards
of efficiency which formerly prevailed in the various
branches of the insular government. Though the
portfolio of public instruction could not be trans-
ferred under the law to native hands, the American
vice-governor who held it conscientiously followed the
orders of his superiors to Filipinize his department as
thoroughly as possible. As a result, American teach-
ers have been almost entirely supplanted by natives in
the lower and intermediate grades and higher educa-
tion was rapidly being turned over to the latter when
the Democratic administration came to an end. There
are now upward of eleven thousand Filipino teachers
and less than four hundred American ones in the
islands, though truth compels me to add that in its
dying days the Harrison regime, presumably alarmed

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 817

at the steady deterioration of the educational system,
attempted to obtain additional teachers from the
United States. One of the regrettable results of the
Filipinization of the schools — regrettable from the
American point of view, at least — is the movement
which has as its object the substitution of Spanish for
English in their curricula. This tendency may be
checked, however, when the young Filipinos, who are
being sent in steadily increasing numbers to the
United States to be educated, begin to make them-
selves felt in the public life of the Philippines. I am
not sufficiently familiar with educational conditions
in the islands to discuss them intelligently, but my
observations convinced me that, though the whole-
sale elimination of American teachers has unques-
tionably resulted in a marked lowering of educational
standards, the native teachers, considering their lim-
itations, are doing exceedingly well.

One of the most important accomplishments of the
Philippine Commission was the establishment in Ma-
nila of the great Bureau of Science for the purpose of
coordinating in one building and under one head all
the agencies of scientific research, such as geology,
zoology, botany, mineralogy, ethnology, forestry, and
medicine. Upon its completion its founders were able
to say with justifiable pride that the opportunities
for tropical research offered at Manila were unequaled
anywhere in the world. Yet this remarkable institu-
tion, at one time the best staffed, the most completely

818 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

equipped, and the most efficient of its kind in exist-
ence, is now a veritable morgue, its once busy cor-
ridors being almost deserted and much of its delicate
and costly apparatus remaining unused and covered
with dust. Before the policy of Filipinization assumed
its later dimensions the Bureau of Science boasted a
staff of truly remarkable men, many of them with
world-wide reputations, who were employed solely on
the strength of their scientific qualifications and re-
gardless of their nationality. But to-day, as a result
of the policy of filling every lucrative post with a Fil-
ipino, only two foreigners remain — an American and
an Austrian.

Far-reaching in its ultimate effect on the progress
of the islanders as the Filipinization of the educa-
tional system is bound to prove, equally serious and
far more immediate developments are certain to re-
sult from the Filipinization of the Health Service. Its
director, Dr. J. B. Long, resigned in January, 1919,
despite the remonstrances of the governor-general,
because he asserted that his organization was falling
to pieces as a result of the wholesale replacement of
experienced Americans by unqualified Filipinos, so
that he could no longer assure responsibility for the
maintenance of public health in the archipelago.
When the Americans landed in the Philippines in
1898, smallpox and cholera stalked almost unchecked
throughout the islands, and that scourge of the East,
bubonic plague, was always hovering at the gate.

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 819

But with the establishment of the Health Service, fol-
lowed by the rigid enforcement of sanitary and pre-
ventive measures, all three of these diseases were
stamped out, making the Philippines the healthiest
tropical country in the world. But within the past
three years, due, so it was claimed by those American
medical men with whom I talked, to the impaired effi-
ciency of the Filipinized Health Service, both cholera
and smallpox have again made their appearance. The
statistics also show that there has been a steady in-
crease in recent years in preventable diseases, espe-
cially malaria, beriberi, tuberculosis, and typhoid. As
the Quarantine Service fortunately remains under
American control, there has been no plague in the
islands for upward of fifteen years.

Much the same state of affairs exists (October,
1921 ) in the Bureau of Public Lands. Due to the in-
efficiency of this bureau the land-title situation in the
Philippines is a serious one, and, if the abuses are not
corrected, will inevitably lead to dangerous discon-
tent. When I was in the Lake Lanao district of Min-
danao the local government land agent was on the eve
of returning to the United States with his wife and
three children, after nearly a decade of faithful and
meritorious service, because his place was wanted for
a Filipino. Yet that man, by the exercise of unremit-
ting patience, tact, energy, and courage, had brought
the savage and predatory Moros of his district from
the hunting stage of existence, where he had found

820 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

them, through the grazing stage and well into the ag-
ricultural stage. And he realized, just as all the other
Americans in his district realized, that much, if not
all, of the progress which he had made during those
years of bitter struggle would be lost because of the
hostility of the Moros for any Filipino who might suc-
ceed him.

Public order is maintained throughout the archi-
pelago by the police forces of the various municipali-
ties and by the Philippine Constabulary, an organiza-
tion which has long had. an enviable reputation for
discipline and efficiency. The constabulary, which
was raised and trained by officers of the American
army, consists at present of about three hundred and
sixty officers and nearly six thousand men. At the
height of its efficiency the force had three hundred
and seventy-five American officers, most of whom had
gone to the islands with volunteer regiments in 1898,
but as a result of the Filipinization of the commis-
sioned personnel only twenty Americans remain.
Though the present chief of constabulary, Brigadier-
General Crame, is for political purposes a Filipino,
he is by blood and training far more European than
Asiatic, being three quarters Spanish and having re-
ceived his military education in Spain, He has dis-
played such marked energy in the pursuit and punish-
ment of malefactors, and is said to have in his secret
files so much information which might prove highly
embarrassing to certain powerful politico*, that he is

A MORO ENLISTED
HAN

Philippine Constabulary

' ON THE BEKOUET ROAD
1 Hummer capital. This road, ■
unequulei] [or Bh.fr audacity of

THE PA8IG RIVER, MANILA

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 821

credited with having remarked that he would leave the
islands the day the American flag was hauled down,
because it would not be safe for him to remain.

I might mention in this connection that an Amer-
ican general who has seen many years of service in
the Philippines recently remarked to me that, in the
event of the United States withdrawing from the is-
lands, it would be little short of criminal for us not
to take some measures which would insure the safety
and well-being of the little tribe of Maccabebes, only
a few thousand strong, who have so faithfully served
us as native scouts from the very beginning of our
occupation. He led me to believe that, were satis-
factory guarantees for their safety not exacted, the
Maccabebes would be in danger of meeting the same
fate which befell the leading Moro dato, of the Lake
Lanao district, who was assassinated in the summer
of 1921 because, according to rumor, he had urged
upon the Wood-Forbes Mission the necessity of keep-
ing the Moro islands under American rule, thereby
arousing the deadly enmity of the Filipinos. But
this is a digression.

No nation was ever more faithfully served by its
public servants than the Philippines have been served
by the American officers of the constabulary. They
have given their best years and the best that was in
them to the service of the Filipinos. Most of the hand-
ful of Americans remaining in the force have worn
its scarlet-trimmed khaki for close on two decades;

822 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

several of them bear on their breasts the bit of star-
spangled crimson ribbon — "the red badge of courage"
— which signifies that the wearer has won the Philip-
pine Medal of Honor; one of them irretrievably
ruined his health while caring for native refugees
during the eruption of Taal Volcano; others carry
on their bodies the scars of bullet, spear, and knife
wounds which they received while making safe for
the Filipinos the savage-infested islands of Mindanao
and "dark and bloody Samar."

Yet, though the Filipinos owe to these men a debt
which they can never hope to repay, injustice and
ingratitude have been their portion. For the
politicians in Manila, quick to recognize how ef-
fective a weapon the constabulary might prove in
partisan hands, eagerly seized upon the policy of
universal Filipinization as a pretext for getting rid
of the American officers. The politicians succeeded
in forcing out most of the American officers in the
lower grades by the enactment of a bill cutting off
their fogies, that is, their progressive increases in
pay for long service. The officers of the constabulary
have never been highly paid, and thus deprived of
their fogies there was small incentive for young and
ambitious men to remain in the service. But when
all except a score of senior officers who were too old
to embark on new careers had been forced out of the
service, the fogies were restored in order that the Fil-
ipino officers might have the benefit of them. Just as

I

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 828

military men of experience predicted, the Filipiniza-
tion of the constabulary, combined with the demoraliz-
ing effect of political influence, has resulted in a con-
siderable lowering of the force's discipline, efficiency,
and morale, for the enlisted men, particularly those
recruited from the non-Christian tribes, will not ac-
cord to their Filipino officers the same measure of re-
spect, the same unquestioning obedience, which they
gave to their American superiors.

vn

But by far the most serious consequence of the pol-
icy pursued by the Wilson administration has been
the complete breakdown of the insular finances and
the resulting impairment of Philippine credit.
Though the story of the financial disaster which has
overtaken the insular government is a long and com-
plicated one, involving many technical details, I will
endeavor to compress it into tabloid dimensions.

The currency of the Philippines consists of silver
and paper, the latter comprising treasury certificates
and notes of the Philippine National Bank. Until
recently this paper currency was kept at par by a gold
reserve, which amounted to $41,500,000 at the begin-
ning of 1919. This reserve, which represented about
97 per cent, of the outstanding paper currency, was
deposited in fifteen different banks in the United

824 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

States. But in 1916 the Philippine Legislature
passed an act establishing the Philippine National
Bank and not long thereafter, and without legal au-
thority, this reserve fund was transferred from the
fifteen depositories to the New Tork agency of the
new bank, to be kept there to the credit of the bank
instead of the government. In other words, the Fili-
pino politicians wanted the money where they could
get at it with the greatest possible ease. Exactly what
happened after that transfer took place has not yet
been satisfactorily explained, but the indisputable fact
remains that the reserve fund which in 1919 amounted
to $41,500,000 had by 1921 dwindled to about $2,000,-
000. In short, approximately 95 per cent, of the
gold reserve which secured the currency of the is-
lands disappeared in two years. In consequence, there
being virtually no funds in New York with which to
honor Philippine drafts, the Philippine Government
was forced to issue an order suspending the sale of
bills of exchange on New York. As was to be ex-
pected this resulted in tying up the import trade of
the islands and demoralizing business generally.

The first question that is asked, naturally, is what
has become of the $39,000,000 which are missing?
Where has this great sum gone? A large part of it
appears to have gone in what may be described, for
want of a better term, as political investments. It
is known that the Philippine National Bank made

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 825

large loans to both Filipinos and Americans in sums
running into millions of pesos without security of
any kind except the borrowers 9 political affiliations.
Some of these loans are good ; most of them are not.
In other cases money was loaned to an individual to
finance a private enterprise, the enterprise itself be-
ing accepted as security for the loan. The enter-
prise failed, and the bank was left with some hand-
somely engraved stock certificates and a sheaf of
notes. In these and other ways not yet disclosed many
millions have disappeared. 1 But whatever the meth-
ods employed by the looters, the fact remains that
the currency reserve has been all but wiped out and
that now there is nothing behind the paper money
of the islands except the credit of the Philippine Gov-
ernment, or, to be exact, the credit of the Govern-
ment of the United States. No matter, therefore,
how loudly the Filipinos may proclaim their suc-
cess in administering certain other departments of
the government — claims which, as I have already
shown, are by no means substantiated by the facts —
they are compelled to admit their failure in the field
of national finance. This being so, it might be prof-
itable for the Filipinos to ponder the fact that,
had the independence which they have so insistently
demanded been given them, their country would be

1 The insular auditor estimates that the losses will reach the total of
$29,500,000.

826 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

facing bankruptcy to-day. And there would be no
rich and indulgent Uncle Sam standing in the back-
ground, hand in pocket, ready to help them out.

The propaganda so zealously disseminated by the
bureau which the Philippine Government maintains
in Washington at a cost of one million pesos a year
has given many foreigners the impression that the
business of the islands is mainly in Filipino hands.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The facts
are that fully 85 per cent, of the local trade is in
the hands of the Chinese, while the wholesale and
foreign business is nearly all in American and Brit-
ish hands, though the Japanese interests in certain
sections of the archipelago are increasing at a rate
which is causing the government some apprehension.

Americans living in the Philippines will tell you
that the insular government is rotten to the core with
corruption. They will tell you that the treasury and
the national bank have been looted — which would ap-
pear to be true — and that the politicos and their
friends have suddenly and mysteriously come into
possession of great fortunes. They will assure you
that the government pay-rolls have been padded, that
government labor and vast quantities of government
materials have been used for private purposes, that
it is impossible to obtain a building permit or to pass
goods through the customs without having recourse
to bribery, that graft and chicanery are to be found
everywhere, that nepotism and political favoritism

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 827

are universal. Of the truth of these accusations I
do not feel that I am competent to judge. That much
corruption and more incompetency exist is hardly
open to question. That certain of the political lead-
ers have scandalously abused their power is admitted
by every one who will tell the truth and who has real
knowledge of the situation. But I do not think
that conditions are as black as the Americans have
painted them, any more than I believe that they are
as rosy as the Filipinos claim. The truth lies some-
where between these extremes. Viewing the experi-
ment of Filipino self-government as it has been es-
sayed under the provisions of the Jones Bill as im-
partially as I am able, I think that the scales incline
more to the side of failure than of success.

During the eight years of the Wilson administra-
tion the government at Washington took the view
that Americans who engaged in business outside the
United States, whether in Mexico, or Central Amer-
ica, or the Philippines, did so at their own risk. It
assumed by some inexplicable process of reasoning
that these men were adventurers, commercial filibus-
ters, and it took the attitude that in case of trouble,
they need not look to their own government for sup-
port or protection. Contrast this attitude, if you
please, with that of the British Government, which
regards those of its nationals engaged in legitimate
business overseas as outposts of trade, as commercial
empire-builders, and recognizes their services to the

828 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

nation with honors and rewards. Perhaps that ex-
plains why after more than two decades of American
sovereignty the British investment in the Philippines
is nearly double the American investment. For the
Englishman can invest his capital in the Philippines
with the comforting knowledge that as long as he
behaves himself he has his government solidly behind
him — and the Filipino knows it, too, and treats him
accordingly. Is it too much to expect, then, that
the American residing and doing business in a land
which was freed from tyranny by the sacrifice of
American lives, which was purchased with American
dollars, which is guarded by the American navy,
which has been made safe by the American army,
whose credit is guaranteed by the American treas-
ury, whose schools and hospitals and railways are
due to American initiative and enterprise, whose sea-
gates are guarded against disease by American quar-
antine surgeons, whose industries have been devel-
oped by American capital, and over which flies the
American flag — is it too much to expect, I repeat,
that the American resident should be accorded the
same measure of representation and protection en-
joyed by an Englishman or a Mexican or a Jap-
anese?

It was to obtain for Americans the same rights en-
joyed by citizens of other countries that two-and-
twenty years after Commodore Dewey took posses-
sion of the archipelago in the name of the United

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 829

States there was organized in Manila the American
Chamber of Commerce of the Philippine Islands.
This organization, to quote its own words, "repre-
sents every phase of American business and interest
in the Philippines and is taking the place of a lega-
tion to the citizens of the United States residing in
the Philippine territory, irrespective of whether they
are members of the organization or not. It purposes
to be heard on every subject affecting the business
or political life of the community. It purposes in all
matters: first, to suggest a remedy; second, to ask
for its application; third, to demand its application;
and fourth, to fight for its application if other proc-
esses are not successful." There you have the Bill
of Rights of the Americans in the Philippines.

vm

Though the bitterest opponents of American rule
in the Philippines cannot charge us with having ex-
ploited the natives for our own profit — and we are
the only nation having colonial possessions of which
this can truthfully be said — in our social relations
with the natives we are no whit different from other
ruling white races. The Englishman in India is no
more supercilious or condescending in his attitude
toward the brown-skinned peoples of the peninsula
than the Americans in the Philippines are toward

880 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

the Filipinos. In the islands the white men and the
brown are separated by a social chasm as deep and
impassable as that which separates army officers and
enlisted men. In certain respects we have carried
this social discrimination to even greater lengths than
have the English, for whereas the Khedivial Club,
Cairo's most exclusive organization, has as many
Egyptian as European members, no Filipino can be
elected to a Manila club, no matter how high his
official position. It did not take our various gov-
ernor-generals long to learn that it was the part of
wisdom not to mix Americans and Filipinos, except at
large official functions when entertaining at the
Palace of Malacanan. The American who marries
a Filipina is promptly ostracized. She may be a
graduate of Bryn Mawr or Vassar or WeUesley, she
may be beautiful and cultured and charming, but no
matter — she is not white.

As the result of many years spent in Oriental coun-
tries I can understand, even if I do not entirely sym-
pathize with, the white man's point of view on this
question. I must confess, however, that it amuses
me to see the wives and daughters of men who were
originally small-town merchants or mechanics, or
who first went out to the islands as enlisted men in
the army of occupation, treating with condescension
Filipinos who have in their veins the proudest blood
of Spain. But, mind you, I do not subscribe to the
social creed of former Governor-General Harrison,

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 881

who said in his farewell address, "I want you to re-
member that in all but face and race I am a Fil-
ipino," any more than I approve of the American
soldier's sentiment toward "the little brown brother"
as inelegantly expressed in the once-famous army
song: "He may be a brother of William H. Taft,
but he ain't no brother of mine." Viewing this deli-
cate and difficult question purely from the political
angle, it seems to me that were the Americans in the
Philippines to lower in some degree the social bar-
rier which they have raised between themselves and
the natives, were they to draw the color line a shade
less sharply, it would go far toward soothing the
wounded pride of the Filipinos and reconciling them
to American rule without entailing any sacrifice of
that prestige which is the fetich of the colonizing
white man.

Another source of Filipino resentment is to be
found in the lack of ordinary tact which characterizes
the attitude of American residents toward the natives.
Mr. Nathaniel Peffer, himself a keen observer and
for many years a resident in the East, quotes a Fil-
ipino educated in the United States as saying:
"Don't give us independence if you don't want to.
The decision is yours to make and we must resign
ourselves to it if it is unfavorable. We can even
sympathize with some of the reasons why independ-
ence would be unwise now. But stop harping on our
"unfitness. 9 It is that we hear all the time, and not

882 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

some of the other reasons. We have eome to hate
that word. All its associations are rasping- to us. It
suggests a savage people come up for judgment be-
fore supermen." With that attitude most fair-
minded Americans will heartily sympathize. For an
educated and self-respecting Filipino to be told over
and over again that he is "unfitted" for self-govern-
ment (no matter how true the statement may be) is
as exasperating and as difficult to refute as the charge
that a man is "temperamentally unsuited" to hold a
certain position. Until we can school ourselves to
exercise greater tact and courtesy in our relations
with the Filipinos, until we can broaden our horizons
sufficiently to look at things from their viewpoint as
well as our own, until we can forget whether a man
is born east or west of Suez and gage our attitude
toward him by his brains instead of his blood, by his
character instead of his complexion, we shall never
win from the Filipinos that confidence and liking
which are indispensable to successful colonial admin-
istration.

The Philippine Question naturally resolves itself
into two distinct problems. First, how would the
granting of independence to the Philippines affect
our own constantly increasing interest in the Far
East? And second, would independence be best for

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 888

the Filipinos themselves? The Filipinos assert, and
with truth, that the former is a purely selfish consid-
eration, but the lessons of the World War have taught
us that national considerations, selfish though they
may be, cannot safely be disregarded. England has
not remained in military occupation of Egypt for
forty years through any desire to exploit the Egyp-
tians or because she has been financially benefited by
her hold on the Valley of the Nile — on the contrary,
the occupation of Egypt has added enormously to
the burdens borne by the British taxpayer — but be-
cause in controlling Egypt she insures the safety of
the Suez Canal, which is the gateway through which
passes Britain's enormous commerce with the Farther
East. Our own position in the Philippines is some-
what analogous to England's position in Egypt,
Within fifteen hours of the China Coast, within fifty
hours of Japan and of the Straits of Malacca, the
archipelago forms a commercial gateway to the whole
of eastern Asia and to the great, rich islands of Ma-
laysia. Glance for a moment at the map and note the
amazing strategic value of the Philippines from the
point of view of American world commerce. Just
across the China Sea lie the great ports of Haiphong,
Hong Kong, Canton, Shanghai, Tsingtau, Cheefoo,
Tientsin, through which pour the imports of the four
hundred millions of people in Indo-China and China.
And as surely as darkness follows the day, as smoke
goes upward, our commerce with the Orient, now

884 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

growing by leaps and bounds, in a considerable meas-
ure at least, will be won away from us by those nations
which are better situated geographically to push their
commercial interests — England through Hong Kong
and Tientsin, France through Haiphong and her con-
cessions in Yunnan, Japan through Korea, Siberia,
Manchuria, and the Shantung Peninsula — if our flag
comes down in the Philippines.

I consider it unlikely in the extreme that we will
ever be forced to resort to arms in defense of our
interests in the Pacific, but that does not mean that
there is no possibility of such a contingency arising.
As this possibility, however remote it may seem, al-
ways exists, let me direct your attention to the im-
mense strategic advantages afforded us by the
Philippines, which are within easy striking distance of
every Asiatic port between Yokohama and Singa-
pore and lie squarely athwart every trade route be-
tween the Far East and Europe, Australia, South
America, and Mexico. With a powerful fleet having
its base in Subic Bay, we could not only guarantee the
Pacific Coast, the Hawaiian Islands, and the Canal
against enemy attack, but we would hold the com-
merce of the Pacific at our mercy. Deprived of the
Philippines as a base of operations in any struggle in
which we might become involved in the Pacific, we
would be forced to fight on the defensive, which, as
most naval experts agree, is usually doubtful strat-
egy.

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 885

"The Philippines are more trouble than they are
worth. Let's get rid of them" has long been the
slogan of many uninformed Americans. Permit me
to call the attention of those who hold this view to
the fact that the Philippines are not costing the Amer-
ican taxpayer a single penny, the insular finances for
several years past having shown a surplus instead of
a deficit. In making this statement I do not con-
sider, of course, the cost of maintaining our naval
and military forces in the islands, for it is to be
assumed that, should we grant the Filipinos independ-
ence, these forces would not be disbanded, but would
merely be ordered to other stations, so that the ex*
pense of their maintenance, if anything, would be
increased. The Philippines, as I have attempted to
show you, constitute America's military and commer-
cial outpost in the Orient. In view of the present
condition of world affairs, whether it would be high
patriotism, good business, sound strategy, to abandon
such an outpost, with the possibility that it might fall
into unfriendly hands, is a question which the Amer-
ican people must decide for themselves.

In considering the question of whether independ-
ence would be best for the Filipinos themselves, it
must be kept in mind that very few educated Filipinos

886 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

expect, or really want, complete autonomy. What
they seek, rather, is a form of independence which
will insure them unrestricted freedom of action and
absolute security without anxiety or expense, in short,
a protectorate. While vociferously demanding the
profits of the business, they are unwilling to assume
the risks ; yet there is a general failure to appreciate
the fact that independence under the protection of
another nation is not true independence. The fact
that their legislative measures are subject to the veto
of the American governor-general, that their finances
are under the supervision of an American auditor,
that a few, a very few positions in the Constabulary,
the Health Service, and the Department of Public
Instruction are still held by Americans, makes the
Filipinos — or, to be precise, the native politicians and
office-seekers — almost childishly resentful, yet they
instantly would become panic-stricken were we to
announce that we proposed to cut them adrift and to
withdraw immediately from the islands, taking our
troops, our warships, and our financial credit with
us. Though I am convinced from my conversations
with a large number of intelligent and thoughtful
Filipinos, who appeared to have the best interests
of their country genuinely at heart, that they would
view with the gravest misgivings a complete sev-
erance of relations with the United States, the polit-
ical leaders have harped so long on the theme of
"la independencia" that the great ignorant mass of

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 887

the people have come to believe that only in absolute
independence will they find happiness and national
salvation.

In order to understand the political situation in
the Philippines it should be kept in mind that the
Filipinos have no political parties as we have in the
United States, because there is no question of suffi-
cient importance to divide public opinion. As a re-
sult, the only political factions are the "ins" and the
"outs/' and both of them, lacking any other issue,
such as taxation, or the tariff, or the League of Na-
tions, clamor for independence, though not one Fil-
ipino in a hundred has other than the haziest ideas
of what independence, with all that it implies, would
mean. The average Filipino's conception of inde-
pendence is well illustrated by a story which was told
me in Manila. A provincial political boss who had
been a candidate for the governorship of a province,
but had met with overwhelming defeat at the polls,
burst into his party headquarters shortly after the
results of the election had been announced, livid with
rage.

"I'm for independence!" he bellowed. "I'm for
independence instantly 1 If only these cursed Amer-
ica/nos were out of here, I 'd come into town with a
thousand of my bolo men and wipe out the gang that
defeated me and make myself governor, votes or no
votes. It 's all the fault of these damned interfering
Americanos. They're always insisting on law and

888 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

order — always talking about the decision of the bal-
lot-box. If we could get rid of them, we'd decide
things with the bolo instead of the ballot. To hell
with Americano rule! \Viva la independenciar

Now that man, opera bouffe as he may seem, rep-
resents the sentiments of a by no means inconsider-
able number of Filipino politicians. These men, in
order to attain their selfish ends, would prefer to see
the Philippines saddled with the brand of "independ-
ence" that Mexico knew under the rule of Carranza,
or that Russia is enjoying under Lenine and Trotsky,
to the reign of decency, security, and justice which
Lord Cromer gave to the Egyptians. As a matter
of fact, the Filipinos are already as free as the peo-
ples of Canada, South Africa, and Australia, enjoy-
ing what unprejudiced foreign observers have de-
clared to be the most just and advanced system of
government in the world. But to these facts they
wilfully close their eyes, stubbornly insisting that
they must have independence in name as well as in
substance.

The American Chamber of Commerce of the Phil-
ippines has advocated that the archipelago be given
a territorial form of government, such as was enjoyed
for many years by Arizona, New Mexico, and Okla-
homa, and that under the name of the "Territory of
Malaya" it be added to the Union. This would doubt*
less solve many of the present problems, but it is a
solution which the leaders of the independence agita-

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 889

tion would almost certainly reject. What they de-
mand is an absolute severance of every tie which binds
the Philippines to the United States. They insist on
being turned loose, a free and sovereign people, to
lead their own lives and to work out their own destiny.
With this demand I can sympathize. The love of free-
dom is inherent in every human being. Yet it would
involve several questions requiring earnest considera-
tion. To begin with, the United States paid Spain
twenty million dollars for the Philippines. Do the
Filipinos propose, in the event of being given their in-
dependence, to refund this sum? A sordid sugges-
tion, perhaps, but it is to be assumed that the pride of
the Filipinos would scarcely permit them to ignore
such an obligation. Again, the Filipinos are the only
people on earth who enjoy the privilege of absolute
free trade with the United States. Certain authorities
claim that the surest way of strangling them would be
to withdraw that privilege from them. But as a free
and sovereign nation could the Filipinos advance any
sound reason why their products should not be sub-
ject to the same duties, upon entering the United
States, as those of other foreign nations? The Fil-
ipinos bitterly resent the suggestion of an American
protectorate, so, in the event of their becoming in-
volved in hostilities with another power, what excuse
would they have for turning to us for protection?
Let me remark here, for the benefit of such Filipinos
as may read this book, that if they seriously believe

840 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

that the American people, once our troops have been
withdrawn and our flag hauled down, would ever
consent to despatch a fleet or raise an army to defend
the Philippines againt foreign aggression, then they
are only deceiving themselves. I believe that I am
expressing the sentiments of the great majority of
the American people when I assert that if the Fil-
ipinos insist on cutting themselves adrift, then they
must be prepared to paddle their own canoe and need
not look to the United States for assistance, either
military or financial, if a storm comes.

It is a deplorable fact that much of the unrest,
uncertainty, and discontent which exist in the Phil-
ippines to-day are directly traceable to certain Amer-
ican politicians who, eager to obtain cheap publicity
and to make political capital, or obsessed with altru-
istic but utterly impracticable ideas, have espoused
the cause of Filipino independence, regarding which
few of them possess first-hand knowledge and which
still fewer are qualified intelligently to discuss. What
we need for a just and intelligent solution of the Phil-
ippine Question are not the philippics of politicians
or the appeals of impractical sentimentalists, but the
reasoned advice of men with long experience in co-
lonial administration, men of the stamp of Cromer
and Milner, Smuts and Curzon, men who serve neither
personal nor party interests. Until we raise the Phil-
ippine Question from the slough of partisan politics

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 841

to the plane of a great national problem, until we
abolish our present system of selecting our colonial
officials on the strength of their political records and
affiliations instead of for their actual qualifications
for the duties to be performed, until we adopt and
adhere to a definite colonial policy, regardless of the
political party which may be in power, until the gov-
ernment at Washington will give heed to the disinter-
ested men who, through long experience, know where-
of they speak, the Philippines will not know enduring
tranquillity or prosperity. The despatch of the Wood-
Forbes Mission to investigate conditions on the spot
and the appointment of General Wood as governor-
general are steps in the right direction. If the Wash-
ington Government will heed the suggestions made
by this mission, if it will back up the new insular
administration, much will be done toward dissipating
the cloudiness and uncertainty which have enveloped
the future of the islands. 1

The conclusions and recommendations of the Wood-
Forbes Mission are so clear, concise, and enlighten-
ing that I quote them here :

If the Filipinos could present more convincing
proofs than they have yet done that they are really
fitted for the independence which they covet ; if they
could show beyond all peradventure that they are
prepared to take care of themselves without further

•See Appendix.

842 ASIA AT THE CROSSROADS

assistance or protection from the United States, then
I believe the majority of the American people would
say: "Here is your independence. Take it, and
God be with you/' But before that happy state of
affairs can be realized we must ask ourselves in all
seriousness certain questions. If we are to grant the
Filipinos their independence, to which of the various
races shall we intrust the machinery of government
— to the Tagalogs, the Ilocanos, or the Visayans, to
name only three of them? Then again, shall we hand
over the reins of power to the great brown mass of
people who are the real natives of the islands, or shall
we give them to the little group of half-caste poli-
ticians and agitators who are at present in the sad-
dle? Shall we deliver the pagan tribes — the Igorots,
Ifugaos, Kalingas, Mandayas, Monobos, and the rest
— to the Christian Filipinos, and if we do, what satis-
factory guaranty can we obtain that their rights will
be respected, that they will not be oppressed and
exploited as they were before the American occupa-
tion? Shall we attempt to coerce the Moros into
submission to the rule of the Filipinos whom they
despise and hate, and if we do coerce them and they
revolt, as they almost certainly would do, shall we
send troops to the islands to aid the Filipinos in sub-
jugating them ? If the "Republic of the Philippines"
should become, as the result of internal jealousies and
dissensions, another Haiti, shall we intervene, as we
did in Haiti, and restore order? Should Japan, or

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 848

China, or both, insist on the unrestricted admission
of their nationals to the rich lands of the Philippines,
— as the Japanese, at least, are reasonably certain to
do, once American protection is withdrawn — and
should the Filipinos refuse them such admission, shall
we be prepared to back up the Filipinos in their re-
fusal with fleets and armies, or shall we stand aloof
and see the archipelago overrun by yellow men?
And finally, if the independence of the young re-
public were menaced by a covetous and warlike neigh-
bor, would we be prepared to spend thousands of
lives and billions of dollars in rescuing the Filipinos
and setting them on their feet and starting them in
business all over again?

In asking these hypothetical questions nothing is
further from my purpose than to embarrass the Fil-
ipinos, whom I like, or to belittle their very real abil-
ities, or to prejudice my readers against them. But
whether embarrassing to the Filipinos or not, they are
questions which the American people must answer,
and answer satisfactorily, before they can conscien-
tiously turn adrift the ten million "little brown broth-
ers" whom they so light-heartedly adopted nearly a
quarter of a century ago.

>

APPENDIX A

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

We find the people happy, peaceful, and in the main pros-
perous, and keenly appreciative of the benefits of American
rule.

We find everywhere among the Christian Filipinos the
desire for independence, generally under the protection of
the United States. The non-Christians and Americans are
for continuance of American control.

We find a general failure to appreciate the fact that
independence under the protection of another nation is not
true independence.

We find that the Government is not reasonably free from
those underlying causes which result in the destruction of
government.

We find that a reasonable proportion of officials and
employees are men of good character and ability, and
reasonably faithful to the trust imposed upon them; but
that the efficiency of the public services has fallen off, and
that they are now relatively inefficient, due to lack of
inspection and to the too rapid transfer of control to
officials who have not had the necessary time for proper
training.

We find that many Filipinos have shown marked capacity
for government service and that the young generation is
full of promise; that the civil service laws have in the main
been honestly administered, but there is a marked deteriora-
tion due to the injection of politics.

We find there is a disquieting lack of confidence in the
administration of justice, to an extent which constitutes
a menace to the stability of the government.

We find that the people are not organized economically

346

346 APPENDIX

nor from the standpoint of national defense to maintain an
independent government.

We find that the legislative chambers are conducted with
dignity and decorum and are composed of representative
men.

We feel that the lack of success in certain departments
should not be considered as proof of essential incapacity
on the part of Filipinos, but rather as indicating lack of
experience and opportunity, and especially lack of inspec-
tion.

We find that questions in regard to confirmation of
appointments might at any time arise which would make a
deadlock between the Governor General and the Philippine
Senate.

We feel that with all their many excellent qualities, the
experience of the past eight years, during which they have
had practical autonomy, has not been such as to justify
the people of the United States relinquishing supervision
of the Government of the Philippine Islands, withdrawing
their army and navy, and leaving the islands a prey to any
powerful nation coveting their rich soil and potential com-
mercial advantages.

In conclusion we are convinced that it would be a betrayal
of the Philippine people, a misfortune to the American
people, a distinct step backward in the path of progress,
and a discreditable neglect of our national duty were we
to withdraw from the islands and terminate our relation-
ship there without giving the Filipinos the best chance pos-
sible to have an orderly and permanently stable government.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. We recommend that the present general status of the
Philippine Islands continue until the people have had time
to absorb and thoroughly master the powers already in
their hands.

2. We recommend that the responsible representative of
the United States, the Governor General, have authority

APPENDIX 847

commensurate with the responsibilities of his position. In
case of failure to secure the necessary corrective action by
the Philippine Legislature, we recommend that Congress
declare null and void legislation which has been enacted
diminishing, limiting, or dividing the authority granted the
Governor General under Act No. 240 of the Sixty-fourth
Congress, known as the Jones bill.

3. We recommend that in case of a deadlock between the
Governor General and the Philippine Senate in the confirma-
tion of appointments that the President of the United
States be authorized to make and render the final decision.

4. We recommend that under no circumstances should
the American Government permit to be established in the
Philippine Islands a situation which would leave the United
States in a position of responsibility without authority.

Leonaed Wood, Chairman.
W. Came&on Foubes.
Octobse 8, 1921.

APPENDIX B

The text of the two treaties regarding China, approved
at Washington, Feb. 4, 1922, by the Conference for the
Limitation of Armament and Pacific and Far Eastern Ques-
tions, follows. The one embodying the Root four points for
the integrity of China and the open door reads :

TREATY ON CHINESE INTEGRITY

The United States of America, Belgium*, the British Em-
pire, China, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and Par-
tugal:

Desiring to adopt a policy designed to stabilize conditions
in the Far East, to safeguard the rights and interests of
China, and to promote intercourse between China and the
other powers upon the basis of equality of opportunity;

Have resolved to conclude a treaty for that purpose and
to that end have appointed as their respective plenipoten-
tiaries:

[Here follow the names of the plenipotentiaries.]

Who, having commwnicaied to each other their full
powers, found to be in good and due form, have agreed as
follows:

ARTICLE I

The contracting powers, other than China, agree:

1. To respect the sovereignty, the independence, and the
territorial and administrative integrity of China.

2. To provide the fullest and most unembarrassed oppor-

348

APPENDIX 849

tunity to China to develop and maintain for herself an effec-
tive and stable Government.

8. To use their influence for the purpose of effectually

establishing and maintaining the principle of equal oppor-
tunity for the commerce and industry of all nations through-
out the territory of China.

4. To refrain from taking advantage of conditions in
China in order to seek special rights or privileges which
would abridge the rights of subjects or citizens of friendly
States, and from countenancing action inimical to the se-
curity of such States.

abticle n

The contracting powers agree not to enter into any
treaty, agreement, arrangement, or understanding, either
with one another or individually or collectively with any
power or powers which would infringe or impair the prin-
ciples stated in Article I.

aeticle m

With a view to applying more effectually the principles of
the open door or equality of opportunity in China for the
trade and industry of all nations, the contracting powers,
other than China, agree they will not seek, nor support their
respective nations in seeking:

(A) — Any arrangement which might purport to establish
in favor of their interests any general superiority of rights
with respect to commercial or economic development in any
designated region in China;

(B) — Any such monopoly or preference as would deprive
the nationals of any other power of the right of undertak-
ing any legitimate trade or industry in China, or of partici-
pating with the Chinese Government, or with any local

850 APPENDIX

authority, in any category of public enterprise, or which
by reason of its scope, duration or geographical extent is
calculated to frustrate the practical application of the prin-
ciple of equal opportunity.

It is understood that the foregoing stipulations of this
article are not to* be so construed as to prohibit the acqui-
sition of such properties or rights as may be necessary to
the conduct of a particular commercial, industrial or finan-
cial undertaking or to the encouragement of invention and
research*

China undertakes to be guided by the principles stated in
the foregoing stipulations of this article in dealing with
applications for economic rights and privileges from Gov-
ernments and nationals of all foreign countries, whether
parties to the present treaty or not.

.ARTICLE IV

The contracting powers agree not to support any agree-
ments by their respective nationals with each other, designed
to create spheres of influence or to provide for the enjoy-
ment of mutually exclusive opportunities in designated parts
of Chinese territory.

ABTICLS V

China agrees that, throughout the whole of the railways
in China, she will not exercise or permit unfair discrimina-
tions of any kind. In particular there shall be no discrim-
ination whatever, direct or indirect, in respect of charges
or of facilities on the ground of the nationality of passen-
gers or the countries from which or to which they are
proceeding, or the origin or ownership of goods or the
country from which or to which they are consigned, or the
nationality or ownership of the ship or other means of con-

APPENDIX 851

▼eying such passengers or goods before or after their trans-
port on the Chinese railways.

The contracting powers, other than China, assume a cor-
responding obligation in respect of any of the aforesaid
railways over which they or their nationals are in a position
to exercise any control in virtue of any concession, special
agreement or otherwise.

AETICLE VI

The contracting parties, other than China, agree fully to
respect China's rights as a neutral in time of war to which
China is not a party ; and China declares that when she is a
neutral she will observe the obligations of neutrality.

article vn

The contracting powers agree that, whenever a situation
arises which, in the opinion of any one of them, involves the
application of the stipulations of the present treaty, and
renders desirable discussion of such application, there shall
be full and frank communication between the contracting
powers concerned.

abticue vm

Powers not signatory to the present treaty which have
governments recognized by the signatory powers and which
have treaty relations with China shall be invited to adhere
to the present treaty. To this end the Government of the
United States will make the necessary communications to
non-signatory powers and will inform the contracting
powers of the replies received. Adherence by any power
shall become effective on receipt of notice thereof by the
Government of the United States*

852 APPENDIX

AftTICLBDC

The present treaty shall be ratified by the contracting
powers in accordance with their respective constitutional
methods and shall take effect on the date of the deposit of
all the ratifications, which shall take place at Washington
as soon as possible. The Government of the United States
will transmit to the other contracting powers a certified
copy of the process verbed of the deposit of ratifications.

The present treaty, of which the English and French texts
are both authentic, shall remain deposited in the archives
of the Government of the United States, and duly certified
copies thereof shall be transmitted by that Government to
the other contracting powers.

In faith whereof the above-named plenipotentiaries have
signed the present treaty.

Done at the City of Washington, the sixth day of Febru-
ary, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-two.

TREATY ON CHINESE TARIFF

The treaty relative to the Chinese tariff and cognate mat-
ters reads :

The United States of America, Belgium, British Empire,
China, France, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands and Por-
tugal:

With a view to increasing the revenues of the Chinese
Government, hatoe resolved to conclude a treaty relating to
the revision of the Chinese customs tariff and cognate mat-
ters, and to that end have appointed as their plenipoten-
tiaries:

[Here follow the names of the plenipotentiaries.]

Who, having communicated to each other their full

APPENDIX 858

powers, found to be in good and due form, have agreed a$
follows:

AETICLE I

The representatives of the contracting powers having
adopted, on the 4th day of February, 1922, in the City of
Washington, a resolution, which is appended as an annex to
this article, with respect to the revision of Chinese customs
duties, for the purpose of making such duties equivalent to
an effective 5 per centum ad valorem, in accordance with
existing treaties, concluded by China with other nations, the
contracting powers hereby confirm the said resolution and
undertake to accept the tariff rates fixed as a result of such
revision. The said tariff rates shall become effective as soon
as possible, but not earlier than two months after publica-
tion thereof.

ANNEX

With a view to providing additional revenue to meet the
needs of the Chinese Government, the powers represented at
this conference, namely, the United States of America, Bel-
gium, The British Empire, China, France, Italy, Japan, the
Netherlands and Portugal, agree:

That the customs schedule of duties on imports into
China, adopted by the Tariff Revision Commission at Shang-
hai on Dec. 19, 1918, shall forthwith be revised so that rates
of duty shall be equivalent to 5 per cent, effective, as pro-
vided for in the several commercial treaties to which China
is a part.

A revision commission shall meet at Shanghai, at the
earliest practicable date, to effect this revision forthwith
and on the general lines of the last revision.

This commission sjiall be composed of representatives of
the powers above named and of representatives of any addi-

854 APPENDIX

tional powers having governments at present recognized by
the powers represented at this conference and who have
treaties with China providing for a tariff on imports and
exports not to exceed 5 per cent, ad valorem and who desire
to participate therein.

The revision shall proceed as rapidly as possible, with a
view to its completion within four months from the date of
the adoption of this resolution by the Conference on Limita-
tion of Armament and Pacific and Far Eastern Questions.

The revised tariff shall become effective as soon as pos-
sible, but not earlier than two months after its publication
by the Revision Commission.

The Government of the United States, as convener of the
present conference, is requested forthwith to communicate
the terms of this resolution to the Governments of powers
not represented at this conference, but who participated in
the revision of 1918 aforesaid.

article n

Immediate steps shall be taken through a special confer-
ence to prepare the way for the speedy abolition of likin and
for the fulfillment of the other conditions laid down in Ar-
ticle VIII of the treaty of Sept. 5, 1902, between Great
Britain and China; in Articles IV and V of the treaty of
Oct. 8, 1903, between the United States and China, and in
Article I of the supplementary treaty of Oct. 8, 1903, be-
tween Japan and China, with a view to levying the surtaxes
provided for in these articles.

The special conference shall be composed of representa-
tives of the signatory powers, and of such other powers as
may desire to participate and may adhere to the present
treaty, in accord with the provisions of Article VIII, in
sufficient time to allow their representatives to take part. It

APPENDIX 855

shall meet in China within three months after the coming
into force of the present treaty on a day and at a place to
be designated by the Chinese Government.

article m

The special conference provided for in Article II shall
consider the interim provisions to be applied prior to the
abolition of likin and the fulfillment of the other conditions
laid down in the articles of the treaties mentioned in Article
II ; and it shall authorize the levying of a surtax on dutiable
imports as from such date, for such purposes and subject
to such conditions as it may determine.

The surtax shall be at a uniform rate of £% per centum
ad valorem, provided that in case of certain articles of
luxury which, in the opinion of the special conference, can
bear a greater increase without unduly impeding trade, the
total surtax may be increased, but may not exceed 5 per
centum ltd valorem.

AftTICLE IV

Following the immediate revision of the customs schedule
of duties on imports into China, mentioned in Article I,
there shall be a further revision thereof, to take effect at the
expiration of four years following the completion of the
aforesaid immediate revision, in order to insure that the
customs duties shall correspond to the ad valorem rates
fixed by the special conference provided in Article II.

Following this further revision there shall be, for the same
purpose, periodical revisions of the customs schedule of
duties on imports into China every seven years, in lieu of the
decennial revision authorized by existing treaties with China.

In order to prevent delay, any revision made in pursuance
of this article shall be effected in accord with rules to be

856 APPENDIX

prescribed by the special conference provided for in Article
II.

AETICLE V

In all matters relating to customs duties there shall be
effective equality of treatment and of opportunity for all the
contracting powers.

AETICUE VI

The principle of uniformity in the rates of customs duties
levied at all the land and maritime frontiers of China is
hereby recognized. The special conference provided for in
Article II shall make arrangements to give practical effect to
this principle, and it is authorized to make equitable adjust-
ments in those cases in which a customs privilege to be
abolished was granted in return for some local economic
advantage.

In the meantime, any increase in the rates of customs
duties resulting from tariff revision or any surtax hereafter
imposed in pursuance of the present treaty, shall be levied
at a uniform rate ad valorem at all land and maritime fron-
tiers of China.

aeticle vn

The charge for transit passes shall be at the rate of %y%
per centum ad valorem until the arrangements provided for
by Article II come into force.

article vra

Powers not signatory to the present treaty, whose Gov-
ernments are at present recognized by the signatory powers
and whose present treaties with China provide for a tariff
on imports and exports not to exceed 5 per centum ad va-
lorem, shall be invited to adhere to the present treaty.

APPENDIX 857

The Government of the United States undertakes to make
the necessary communications for this purpose and to in-
form the Governments of the contracting powers of the re-
plies received. Adherence by any power shall become ef-
fective on receipt of notice thereof by the Government of the
United States.

ARTICLE IX

The provisions of the present treaty shall override all
stipulations of treaties between China and the respective
contracting powers, which are inconsistent therewith, other
than stipulations according most favored nation treatment.

article x

The present treaty shall be ratified by the contracting
powers in accord with their respective constitutional
methods and shall take effect on the date of the deposit of
all the ratifications, which shall take place at Washington as
soon as possible. The Government of the United States will
transmit to the other contracting powers a certified copy of
the prods verbal of the deposit of ratifications.

The present treaty, of which the English and French
texts are both authentic, shall remain deposited in the ar-
chives of the Government of the United States and duly cer-
tified copies thereof shall be transmitted by that Govern-
ment to the other contracting powers.

In faith whereof the above-named plenipotentiaries have
signed the present treaty.

Done at the City of Washington, the sixth day of Febru-
ary, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-two.

SUPPLEMENT TO FAR EAST TREATY

This resolution was adopted as a supplement to the gen-
eral Far Eastern treaty :

858 APPENDIX

The United States of America, Belgium, the British Em-
pire, China, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and
Portugal,

Desiring to provide a procedure for dealing with questions
that may arise in connection with the execution of the pro-
visions of Articles III and V of the treaty to be signed at
Washington on Feb. 6, 1922, with reference to their general
policy, designed to stabilize conditions in the Far East, to
safeguard the rights and interests of China, and to promote
intercourse between China and the other powers upon the
basis of equality of opportunity,

Resolve, That there shall be established in China a board
of reference to which any questions arising in connection
with the execution of the aforesaid articles may be referred
for investigation and report.

The special conference, provided in Article II of the
treaty to be signed at Washington on Feb. 6, 1922, with
reference to the Chinese customs tariff, shall formulate for
the approval of the powers concerned a detailed plan for
the constitution of the board.

DECLARATIONS BY AND ON CHINA

The Chinese declaration regarding alienation of territory,
also added to the Far Eastern treaty, was stated thus :

China upon her part is prepared to give an undertaking
not to alienate or lease any portion of her territory or lit-
toral to any power.

The Chinese delegation also announced an "undertaking"
in connection with the tariff treaty, which stated that "the
Chinese Government have no intention to effect any change
which may disturb the present administration of the Chinese
maritime customs."

APPENDIX 859

The resolution regarding the Chinese Eastern Railroad
reads :

Resolved, that the preservation of the Chinese Eastern
Railway for those in interest requires that better protection
be given the railway and the persons engaged in its opera-
tion and use, a more careful selection of personnel to secure
efficiency of service, and a more economical use of funds to
prevent waste of the property; that the subject should be
dealt with through the proper diplomatic channels.

The powers in the Far Eastern Committee, other than
China, added to this a supplementary resolution as follows:

The powers other than China, in agreeing to the resolu-
tion regarding the Chinese Eastern Railway, reserve the
right to insist hereafter upon the responsibility of China for
performance or non-performance of the obligations toward
the foreign stockholders, bondholders, and creditors of the
Chinese Eastern Railway Company, which the powers deem
to result from the contracts under which the railroad was
built, and the action of China thereunder, and the obligations
which they deem to be in the nature of a trust, resulting
from the exercise of power by the Chinese Government over
the possession and administration of the railroad.

TEXT OF SHANTUNG AGREEMENT

The terms of settlement as agreed upon, Feb. 1, 1922, by
the representatives of the Governments of Japan and China
follow :

I. THE POEMEE OEEMAN LEASED TEEEITOET OF HAO-CHAU

1. Japan shall restore to China the former German leased
territory of Kiao-Chau.

2. The Governments of Japan and China shall each ap-
point a commission with powers to make and carry out de-
tailed arrangements relating to the transfer of the adminis-

860 APPENDIX

tration and of public property in the said territory and
to settle other matters equally requiring adjustment. For
such purposes the Japanese and Chinese commissions shall
meet immediately upon the coming into force of the present
agreement.

8. The said transfer and adjustment shall be completed
as soon as possible, and in any case not later than six
months from the date of the coming into force of this agree-
ment.

4. The Japanese Government agrees to hand over to the
Chinese Government, upon the transfer to China of the ad-
ministration of the former German-leased territory of Kiao-
Chau such archives, registers, plans, title-deeds and other
documents, in the possession of Japan or certified copies
thereof, as may be necessary for the said transfer, as well
as those that may be useful for the administration by China,
after such transfer, of that territory, and of the 50-kilome-
ter zone around Kiao-Chau Bay.

H. PUBLIC PROPERTIES

1. The Government of Japan undertakes to transfer to
the Government of China all public properties, including
land, buildings, works or establishments in the leased terri-
tory of Kiao-Chau, whether formerly possessed by the Ger-
man authorities or purchased or constructed by the Japa-
nese authorities during the Japanese administration of the
said territory, save those indicated in this article (Para-
graph 3) of this treaty.

2. In the transfer of such public properties no compensa-
tion will be claimed from the Government of China except
(1) for those purchased or constructed by the Japanese
authorities and also (2) for the improvement on or addi-
tions to those formerly possessed by the German authorities.

APPENDIX 861

With regard to cases under these two categories, the Gov-
ernment of China shall refund a fair and equitable propor-
tion of the expenses actually incurred by the Government
of Japan for such properties specified in (1) or such im-
provements or additions specified in (2), having regard to
the principle of depreciation.

3. It is agreed that such public properties in the leased
territory of Kiao-Chau as are required for the Japanese
Consulate to be established in Tsing-tao shall be retained
by the Government of Japan, and that those required more
especially for the benefit of the Japanese community, in-
cluding public schools, shrines and cemeteries, shall be left in
the hands of the said community.

Details of such matters shall be arranged by the joint
commission provided for in an article of this treaty.

m. JAPANESE TEOOPS

The Japanese troops, including gendarmes now stationed
along the Tsing-tao-Tsinanfu Railway and its branches,
shall bfc withdrawn as soon as the Chinese police or military
force shall have been sent to take over the protection of the
railway.

The disposition of the Chinese police or military force and
the withdrawal of the Japanese troops under the foregoing
provisions may be effected in sections. The date of the com-
pletion of such process for each section shall be arranged
in advance between the competent authorities of Japan and
China. The entire withdrawal of such Japanese troops
shall be effected if possible within three months, and, in any
case, not later than six months from the date of the signa-
ture of the present agreement.

The Japanese garrison at Tsing-tao shall be completely
withdrawn, simultaneously, if possible, with the transfer of

362 APPENDIX

the administration of the leased territory of Kiao-Chau to
China, and in any case not later than thirty days from the
date of such transfer.

IV. THE MARITIME CUSTOMS

1. It is agreed that upon the coming into force of the
present treaty, the Customs House of Tsing-tao shall be
made an integral part of the Chinese maritime customs.

2. It is understood that the provisional agreement of
Aug. 6, 1915, between Japan and China relative to the mari-
time customs office at Tsing-tao will cease to be effective
upon the coming into force of the present treaty.

V. THE TSING-TAO-T8INANFU EATLWAY

1. Japan shall transfer to China the Tsing-tao-Tsinanfu
Railway and its branches, together with all the properties
appurtenant thereto, including wharves, warehouses and
other similar properties.

China, on her part, undertakes to reimburse to Japan the
actual value of the railway properties mentioned in the pre-
ceding paragraph. The actual value to be so reimbursed
shall consist of the sum of 53,406,141 gold marks (which is
the assessed value of such portion of the said properties as
was left behind by the Germans) or its equivalent, plus the
amount which Japan, during her administration of the rail-
way has actually expended for permanent improvements on
or additions to the said properties, less a suitable allowance
for depreciation. It is understood that no charge will be
made with respect to the wharves, warehouses and other
similar properties mentioned in Paragraph 1 of this article,
except for such permanent improvements on or additions to
them as may have been made by Japan during her adminis-
tration of the railway, less a suitable allowance for depre-
ciation.

APPENDIX 868

The Government of Japan and the Government of China
shall each appoint three Commissioners to form a joint rail-
way commission, with powers to appraise the actual value
of the railway properties on the basis defined in the pre*
ceding paragraph, and to arrange the transfer of the said
properties.

Such transfer shall be completed as soon as possible, and,
in any case, not later than nine months from the date of the
coming into force of the present agreement.

To effect the reimbursement under Paragraph ft of this
article, China shall, simultaneously with the completion of
the transfer of the railway properties, deliver to Japan Chi-
nese Government Treasury notes, secured on the properties
and revenues of the railway, and running for a period of
fifteen years, but redeemable at the option of China at the
end of five years from the date of the delivery of the Treas-
ury notes, or at any time thereafter upon six months' pre-
vious notice.

Pending the redemption of the said Treasury notes, the
Chinese Government will select and appoint, for so long a
period as the said notes remain unredeemed, a Japanese sub-
ject to the post of traffic manager and another Japanese
subject to the chief accountant jointly with the Chinese
chief accountant with co-ordinate functions. These of-
ficials shall all be under the direction, control and super-
vision of the Chinese managing director, and removable for
cause.

Financial details of a technical character relating to the
said Treasury notes, not provided for in this article, shall
be determined in mutual accord between the Japanese and
China authorities as soon as possible and, in any case, not
later than six months from the date of the coming into force
of the present agreement.

864 APPENDIX

VU THE EXTENSIONS OF THE TSINO-TAO-TSINANFir RAILWAT

It is agreed that the concessions relating to the two ex-
tensions of the Tsing-tao-Tsinanfu Railway, namely, the
Tsinanfu-Shunteh and the Kaomi-Hsuchowfu lines, will be
thrown open for the common activity of an international
financial group, on terms to be arranged between the Chinese
Government and the said group.

vn. MINES

The mines of Tsechuan, Fangtse and Chinlingchen, for
which the mining rights were formerly granted by China to
Germany, shall be handed to a company to be formed by a
special charter of the Chinese Government, in which the
Japanese commissions which are to be amount of the Chi-
nese capital. The mode and terms of such arrangement shall
be determined by the Chinese and Japanese commissions
which are to be appointed for that purpose' and which shall
meet immediately upon the coming into force of the present
agreement.

Vm. OPENING OF THE FORMER GERMAN LEASED TERRITORY

The Japanese Government declares that it has no inten-
tion of seeking the establishment of an exclusive Japanese
settlement or of an international settlement in Tsing-tao.

The Chinese Government, on its part, declares that the
entire area of the former German leased territory of Kiao~
Chau will be opened to foreign trade, and that foreigners
will be permitted freely to reside and to carry on commerce,
industry and other lawful pursuits within such area.

The vested rights lawfully and equitably acquired by
foreign nationals in said area, whether under the German
regime or during the Japanese military occupation, will be
respected.

APPENDIX 865

All questions relating to the status or validity of such
vested rights acquired by Japanese nationals shall be ar-
ranged by the Sino-Japanese Joint Commission.

IX. SALT INDUSTRY

Whereas, the salt industry is a Government monopoly in
China, it is agreed that the interests of Japanese companies
of Japanese nationals actually engaged in the said industry
along the coast of Kiao-Chau Bay are to be purchased by
the Chinese Government on payment of fair compensation,
and that exportation to Japan of a quantity of salt pro-
duced by the said industry along the said coast is to be per-
mitted on reasonable terms. Arrangements for the above
purposes, including the transfer of said interests to the
Chinese Government, shall be completed by the Chinese and
Japanese commissions as soon as possible, and in any case
not later than six months from date of the coming into force
of the present agreement.

X, SUBMAMNE CABLES

Japan declares that all the rights, title and privileges con-
cerning former German submarine cable between Tsing-tao
and Chefoo, and between Tsing-tao and Shanghai, are vested
in China, with the exception of those portions of the said
two cables which have been utilized by the Japanese Gov-
ernment for the laying of a cable between Tsing-tao and
Sasebo — it being understood that the question relating to
the landing and operation at Tsing-tao and the said Tsing-
tao-Sasebo cable shall be arranged by the Chinese and Japa-
nese commissions as subject to the terms of the existing con-
tracts to which China is a party.

XI. WIBELE8S STATIONS

The Japanese wireless stations at Tsing-tao and Tsinanfu
shall be transferred to China upon the withdrawal of the

866 APPENDIX

Japanese troops at those two places, respectively, with fair
compensation for the value of these stations.

The details of such transfer and compensation shall be ar-
ranged by the Chinese and Japanese commissions.

ANNEXES

I. PREFERENTIAL EIGHTS

Japan declares that she renounces all preferential rights
with regard to foreign assistance in persons, capital and
material, stipulated in the Sino-German Treaty of March
6, 1898.

n. PUBLIC ENTERPRISES

Enterprises relating to electric light, telephone, stock
yards, &c., shall be handed over to the Chinese Government,
with the understanding that the stock yard, electric light
and laundry enterprises are, in turn, to be handed over to
the municipal government of Tsing-tao, which will form
Chinese corporations in conformity with the Chinese com-
pany law to manage them under municipal supervision and
regulations.

IH. TELEPHONES

1. The Japanese Government agrees to turn over to the
Chinese Government the telephone enterprise in the former
German leased territory of Kiao-Chau.

2. As regards such telephone enterprise, the Chinese Gov-
ernment will give due consideration to requests from the
foreign community at Tsing-tao for such extensions and
improvements as may be reasonably required by the general
interests of the public.

IV. PUBLIC WORKS

The Chinese Government declares that in the management
and maintenance of the public works in Tsing-tao, such as

APPENDIX 867

roads, waterworks, parks, drainage, sanitary equipment, &c,
handed over to the Chinese Government by the Japanese
Government, the foreign community in Tsing-tao shall have
fair representation.

V. MAEITIME CUSTOMS

The Chinesd Government declares that it will move the
Inspector General of the Chinese maritime customs to per-
mit the Japanese traders at Tsing-tao to communicate with
the said customs in the Japanese language, and, in the se-
lection of a suitable staff for the Tsing-tao customs, to give
consideration within the limits of its established service regu-
lations to the diverse needs of the trade of Tsing-tao.

VL THE T8tNrG-TAO-TSINANFTT EAILWAT

Should the joint railway commission fail to reach an
agreement on any of the matter entrusted to its charge, the
points at issue shall be taken up by the two Governments
for discussion and adjustment by means of diplomacy. In
the determination of such points the two Governments shall,
if necessary, obtain recommendations of an expert or ex-
perts of a third power or powers who shall be designated in
mutual agreement with each other.

VII. EXTENSION OF THE TSING-TAO-T8INANPU EAILWAT

Hie Japanese Government has no intention of claiming
that the option for the construction of the Chefoo-Weihsien
Railway should be thrown open for the common activity of
the International Financial Consortium if that railway is to
be constructed with Chinese capital.

Vm. OPENING OF THE FOEXEE LEASED TBEEITOET

The Chinese Government declares that, pending the enact*
ment and general application of laws regulating the system